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Mushroom Plastics

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When we talk about mushrooms, we typically muse on any combination of three sub-strains: recreational foraging, adventures in a psychedelic Legoland, and underrated pizza toppings.

But not Eben Bayer. As the toe-shoe wearing cofounder and CEO of Ecovative Design, he talks about mushrooms as if they’re the precise opposite of delicate, spore-bearing fungi that duly spring forth from damp soil and waste. When Bayer talks ’shrooms, he's talking about industrial-strength packaging.

So much of our packaging–used to protect the corners of that precious new HD flatscreen TV, say–is expanded polystyrene foam, better known as Styrofoam. This synthetic material is petroleum based, and downright nasty. Bill Grayson, Ecovative’s lead manufacturing engineer, calls it “toxic white stuff.” Even worse, disposable plastics permeate space, as we continue using carcinogenic compounds that linger for thousands of years to mass produce insulation with a designed lifespan of mere hours or days. Once the TV is unpacked, or the single-use cup is empty, many of us simply pitch Styrofoam without hesitation. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1,400 tons of Styrofoam end up in landfills day in, day out. There, discarded disposable plastics break down into particulate matter that seeps into the air we breathe, the fish we eat, the water we drink.

Ecovative, by contrast, takes cues from nature, from all that “toxic white stuff” poisons, to produce biodegradable and home-compostable alternatives to insulative packaging, an approach that cuts down on resources and energy along the way. The eight-person team is using farm waste (“gravel”) and mushroom mycelium ("cement") to literally grow their concrete-like packaging, which they claim bests Styrofoam in both performance and environmental benefit. For Bayer, the fungi future is now.

In the fourth installment of our Upgrade series, Motherboard takes a trip to Ecovative’s headquarters in Green Island, New York to check out their approach, get a crash course on psilocybe, and do some foraging with Sue Van Hook, Ecovative’s chief mycologist and self-professed “mushroom nut.” 

 

Hosted by Brian Anderson 6 months ago

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