Mushrooms: The Next Plastic?

Why You Should Discover The Brain-Boosting Power of Natural Nootropics

Ever thought about how often you use plastic? A lot of products we use daily (and don’t even think about!) are made of the stuff, from Starbucks coffee cups, to straws, and boxes for takeout. Even shipping boxes are stuffed with foam “peanuts” to protect fragile items. Plastic is everywhere, and you’d be hard-pressed to avoid it totally.

An Alternative to Plastic?

One culprit stands on top of the heap, however. A white, spongy material you know as Styrofoam. Styrofoam is the $20+ billion plastic industry that can never be truly recycled or thrown away. Once made, Styrofoam does not rot… Styrofoam stays in our oceans and landfills for thousands of years!

What if there was a natural alternative to styrofoam? A product made from 100% biodegradable material?

Could it be that our dear mushrooms are coming to the rescue yet again?!

Let’s take a journey back to 2013, when a brilliant discovery made it possible to imagine a cleaner, greener future.

The Anti-Styrofoam

In 2013, Eben Bayer, CEO and co-founder of Ecovative, spoke to The Guardian about how he developed a 100% eco-friendly material that acts like plastic, but is made from mushrooms:

“We’re able to compete with an entrenched billion-dollar plastic industry because we’re not extracting things.

“We’re leveraging the power of biology.”

Here’s why mushrooms are perfect for the job. Their webs of wispy roots (called mycelium) eat up waste from crops. This mycelium then converts the crop waste into a “plasticky” material, which is a lot like Styrofoam, all in a span of a few days. The finished product can be molded into any shape you desire.

Ecovative calls it Mushroom Packaging.

Mushroom Packaging

Mushroom Packaging acts like real plastic in so many ways. Due to its springy texture, it’s often used in shipping boxes as an alternative “foam pad”. But unlike Styrofoam, Mushroom Packaging is 100% biodegradable. This means you can break ‘em, and toss ‘em into your garden or compost. And because the “shroom plastic” was fed with crop waste, they’ll give nutrients back to the soil.

So how exactly do we turn mushrooms into 100% biodegradable “plastic”? Here’s how it works!

Making “Shroom Plastic”

Designers make a 3D digital model of your desired Mushroom Packaging. These become a real-life, solid “mould” for growth trays – which are reused hundreds of times.

Growth trays are filled with hemp hurds (natural waste from the hemp plant) and mycelium. This squishy “tray filling” is left to grow for 4 days so it can take shape. As it grows, the mycelium eats the hemp hurds, creating a “natural plastic” of sorts.

After 4 days, the grown mixture is POPPED OUT of the tray. You can see that the “shroom plastic” has taken the mould’s original shape. Leave it to grow for 2 more days for a velvety skin.

The fresh “shroom plastic” is then dried, which stops the mycelium from growing further. It’s now ready for use as Mushroom Packaging to protect items in shipment.

Benefits of Mushroom Packaging

Mushroom Packaging is not just a pretty alternative to Styrofoam. Yes, it’s a nifty packaging material for shipping, but the dried mushroom “plastic” has other useful traits… Such as being:

Non-toxic. There is no harm to kids or pets that may ingest them by accident, as Mushroom Packaging is not poisonous;

Naturally fire-resistant. “Shroom plastic” won’t catch fire so easily;

Home-compostable. You can toss Mushroom Packaging into your compost, where it can break down into mycelium. Lots of nutrients for the soil, too!

100% Free of Carcinogens. Mushroom Packaging has no harmful chemicals in it. Unlike Styrofoam, which has a cancer-causing neurotoxin called Benzene.

A Second Life for Waste. “Shroom plastic” doesn’t just eat hemp hurds. It eats other wastes, too — such as seed husks and woody biomass, like fallen branches and leaves.

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The Dangers of Styrofoam

Because Styrofoam is such a part of modern life, it can be easy to shrug off just how harmful it can be. Despite the fact you may only be eating from it, polystyrene plastics (such as Styrofoam) can get inside the human body, and cause you a whole lotta problems — like cancer.

In 1986, the Environment Protection Agency National Human Adipose Tissue Survey took fat tissue from humans, and found styrene bits in every single sample. That was when science realised that plastic can find its way inside us… Even if we’re being careful. If you really think about it, Styrofoam is a poison in plain sight.

Why Mycology Rules

The world of mycology is so vast. Who knew mushrooms can offer a 100% eco-friendly alternative to Styrofoam, at 1/10th of the cost? All it needs is some serious investors, ones who care about the health of humanity.

Mushroom Packaging is not science fiction, folks, it’s right here in front of you. And when it comes to fungi, we earthlings have barely scratched the surface.