Plastic from mushrooms
Scientists work to develop ecologically friendly new class of materials

By Erin Wilds · The Mainstream
Published November 9, 2010

When you order a package online in the future, a new technology may be used for the delivery process. It’s not a flying delivery truck or retina-scanning security device. The change will come inside the box.

Instead of the purchased item being insulated by a thousand pieces of Styrofoam “popcorns,” the package will be protected with the power of fungus.

Actual whole mushrooms won’t be tucked into the box of course. Inventor Eben Bayer and his team at Ecovative Design explained their mushroom innovation recently at TEDGlobal 2010, a set of conferences recognized globally.

“We're using mushrooms to create an entirely new class of materials which perform a lot like plastics during their use, but are made from crop waste and are totally compostable at the end of their lives,” said Bayer.

Bayer’s idea uses nature’s own recycling system, the mushroom, to help our recycling system. Using a part of the mushroom called mycelium, Ecovative Design can produce materials that have the same properties of conventional synthetics.

“Mycelium is an amazing material, because it's a self-assembling material. It actually takes things we would consider waste -- things like seed husks or woody biomass -- and can transform them into a chitinous polymer, which you can form into almost any shape,” said Bayer.

Bayer is particularly opposed to the current use of Styrofoam which he calls “one of the most egregious offenders in the disposable plastics category” and “toxic white stuff.” According to Bayer, since mycelium is made of natural materials, it is 100 percent compostable.

Another positive side of mycelium is that it essentially costs the same to produce as the materials that are currently widely used. “Our target is to be cost neutral when compared to foams,” said Bayer. “For instance, the corners Steelcase [a home furnishing company] is using are no more expensive than the foam they were using before. This isn't true for every product and every package type, but we are pretty close. Cost competitiveness is essential to have a big impact.”

The theme of preserving the Earth recurred several times throughout Bayer’s presentation.

“We should be creating materials that fit into what I call nature's recycling system. This recycling system has been in place for the last billion years. I fit into it, you fit into it, and a hundred years tops, my body can return to the Earth with no preprocessing. Yet that packaging I got in the mail yesterday is going to last for thousands of years, right? This is crazy.”