I was part of a team experimenting with mushroom packaging about 3 years ago. While we had quite good results material-wise, we couldn’t really make the total environmental equation work on smaller scales. Growing the mycelium really fast and efficiently requires quite a bit of energy input (heating, humidity controls, airflow…) and you need to source quite a few ingredients for the growth medium. I’d be curious what the total ecological impact is if all of those inputs are factored in when doing it on a large scale (like Ecovative).
The Opulo / LumenPNP folks talked about this in their video on packaging their pick-and-place machine[1]. They mention that it takes a month to grow the packaging, so you'd need a mold for each unit of product you plan to ship in a month.
> and you need to source quite a few ingredients for the growth medium
That’s entirely dependent on the species.
Oysters can be grown entirely on non-supplemented sawdust. Supplements can be just wheat bran or soy hulls, and maybe gypsum or CaCO3. That’s a short ingredient list and easily sourced from your local Tractor Supply.
> Growing the mycelium really fast and efficiently requires quite a bit of energy input (heating, humidity controls, airflow…)
Given the impact of climate change, it's not really worth saving a little bit of oil to make the plastic (which, since it's not biodegradable, will probably not contribute to increasing greenhouse gasses) if you have to burn more oil, which will produce CO2, to make the mushroom-based packaging.
The fact that plastic isn't biodegradable is one of the main reasons there's a push for alternate packaging materials. Plastic overuse is a major ecological concern, to the point that some people are positioning it as an issue on par with global warming, and one we have time to work on fixing.
In other words, avoiding plastic is the whole point here.
Yet using mycelieum for packing materials requires lots of disposable plastic to convert something already suitable for a packing material (sawdust) into a different material suitable for packing material with a little green washing.
I didn’t see myceliated sawdust density, but in general it looks like Fungi are stripping carbon from the growth medium so generally end up lighter when dried. Myceliated sawdust is also a solid material which can have void spaces around the object. For example, formed into spheres it should provide ~25% void space.
It seems odd to be so opposed to plastic that one might not use in favor of another product that requires more energy input and is this worse for global warming.
The point is that if energy is produced using non-fossil-fuel sources, then increasing energy intensity of industrial processes will not necessarily output more CO2.
That is, using coal power to make make energy-intensive mushroom-based packaging is probably ecologically net-negative, but if you can use solar or geothermal power it might not be.
- Spawn (either grain or some form of sugar water)
- Disposable lab equipment (scalpels, petri dishes, parafilm, syringes, etc). Some of this doesn't need to be disposable but then you spend more energy cleaning and sterilizing it.
- All the energy that goes into sterilization, humidification, etc.
- Mushrooms can be grown in reusable plastic bottles. Enoki is already grown in them but they are gaining in popularity for oysters.
- Yes, no way around spawn or lab equipment.
- Humidification is relatively low energy. Even a regular consumer-grade humidifier will be enough for an amateur grow operation. And even for larger humidifiers, the water and energy requirement is minimal.
- You can pasteurize substrate with zero-energy methods like cold pasteurization (via calcium hydroxide) or composting (industry standard right now, basically what all commercial button mushroom farms do).
- Sterilization of spawn is indeed high energy, but using electric desktop autoclaves (AA has a few models) significantly reduces energy use. They are used quite rarely commercially, though.
Yes, i work on exactly this now, for years, many failures.
Co2 output from mushroom is the input to cannabis.
Temperature differential is a real problem.
(I think many mushrooms are pretty happy fruiting at ~70F room temperature, as is cannabis. Is it that the grow lights fight the humidity needs of the mushrooms? Or do the species of mushrooms you're using have different temperature needs? Or the cannabis grows faster as temperature increases?
I've only worked with shiitake and oyster, and got poor results with one lions mane attempt so... definitely not an expert)
I just want to add, if people are upgrading to LEDs they will have a drop in yield unless they raise room temperatures to 80F or more so there is still a temperature differential, although to me it seems relatively minor especially using heat exchangers. The high efficiency of LED grow lights means leaf temperatures are much lower so room temperature must go up to compensate.
I wonder if the root zone needs the warmth too, or if its just the aerial parts of the plant that needs the warmth for optimal growth.
Maybe plastic with holes for each stem could be used to insulate the aerial airspace from the root airspace and then a small heatpump could make that 10F differential with relatively low power cost.
What if the human genome code diffs based on pro-longed temp differentials in host biology (meaning if the in-utero mother was in a prolonged colder climate, which altered the passed on DNA)
So"cooking" dna is a real thing, May one be able to "calcify" information into DNA based on temp? Science fiction galore!
Backstory when I was on design team for UCSF... I met a gene designer who built a system of being able to funnel genes to stem cells in a method of allowing said genes to express based on what prteins exposed to...
The idea being "ne may produce X gene to stem cell, and thus may determine how this stem cell will express"
Meaning :what do we feed a stem cell as far as proteins are concerned, in order to make these stem cell express as [kidney] or - [insert-organ-cell-type-here]
ooh, yes plz.
i'll take a large order of both motor & memory neurons plz. could i get them without surgery?
i think the delivery mechanism for stem cell tech is sufficiently complex that it is reserved only for explicitly necessary procedures and regrettably by present day medical definitions that is 'urgently life threatening' so the idea of growing another kidney or whatever, unlikely. besides, it'll probably be easier to grow meat kidneys outside the body and then surgically implant them.
cannabis can grow very fast in the right conditions.
mushrooms can grow very fast in the right conditions.
so ... I suppose if you live in a place .. like Merica 70F/21c (or are you Liberian?) .. anyway, that 70F is 'golden temperature band' conducive to growing most anything. YES both species could co-exist without a lot of complication, neither will thrive, but neither will probably die.
70F - I think that's like Vista, CA. has the ideal 'most stable' temperature in the US. .. but real-estate is super expensive, so to have that you must live in a nice place, with good weather and blabla, "it's not farm-land", .. also if you need something you probably just order it from Amazon and it shows up a day later.
RE: Cannabis 'optimal yield' .. i.e. we both get the 'same' genetics, from the same bank, which of us could grow a better plant? The environmental conditions + light + soil motility (or hydro) all contribute to phenotype expression, not just life cycle, .. over the life, the air-flow rate for transpiration, light fluence, all those must be in balance -- MOST cannabis per it's name 'weed' is quite hardy, but you'll get different phenotype expression, if you have poor ventilation, o2 build-up (low co2), that can shock/stress the plant, it won't be as dense (i.e. if you are sea level vs. growing on a mountain) .. if you start changing it's environment you'll see the plant changes a lot, also using hormones, other approaches there are a lot of ways to boost yield (also, NEVER for example put Flower/Rose grow accelerate on your cannabis, it becomes cancer causing toxic when smoked! and this is why 'dark market' cannabis is so dangerous). Some cannabis growers buy industrial Co2 tanks and pipe that into their greenhouses, especially in places where they are limited to how many plants they can legally grow in a space, -- so it's known to use co2 helps to turn over bigger crops faster (the co2 comes from petroleum, and it makes me sick to think they're just dumping it into the atmosphere). I've seen growers using co2 do as many as ~6 full cycles per year (sort of like raising chickens indoors using lights).. so I wanted an organic source of Co2 from either brewing yeast and/or mushrooms! (NOTE: this is NOT cost competitive, petroleum based co2 is basically free)
Because .. MOST growers, most farmers in general are pretty lazy, and "don't mess with it" since plants have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to exist on earth in the present climate. Most* 'farmers' aren't scientists, they are inclined to let nature be nature and give up control of existential co-factors, beyond water, fertilizer, greenhouse structure. This is really easy, probably 'best' if you live in ideal climate zone, nature takes care of most of this for you -- I grew up in San Diego, CA. aside from water, the SoCal weather is extremely conducive to growing .. always 70F. US Farmers are often religious, and in this case, the religion is necessary because all they can do is pray for good weather, and (so I've been told) that seems to be working so far!
Alas, I do not live in Merica anymore, .. I'm an Expat! I (intentionally) live someplace else, and having left the US my prayers are no longer answered. I left the US because I don't want to live in an anocracy (failed democracy), and at this point, perhaps in my lifetime the US will collapse into civil war, and the subsequent religious state that would emerge, it's not someplace I want to live. I mostly blame Regan, but I do miss the weather in San Diego. Alas, I digress. My point is: praying for crops only seems to work in America, mostly where there is already good weather & therefore better churches.
Now, something most American's don't realize is that MOST of the people on the planet Earth, they live in a place where the weather is already unpleasant (I assume, because god hates non-Americas), and also mostly attributed to America, the non-American weather is only going to get worse (more extreme). Our ecosystem of plants & fungi - stuff that used to grow -- the truth is it already doesn't grow as well as it did for our grand-parents, and in the future, well who knows, .. indoor growing 'sheltered farming', controlling temperature, when it's all ~70F US (i.e. Los Angeles), farming there isn't hard, maybe the soil is bad,whaha, add some lime to break up your clay, then keep dumping yer high nitrogen fertilizer till it gets into your lakes & rivers .. or at least until we hit peak phosphorous and you can't buy/afford fertilizer .. that's maybe ~10-20 years but alas, I digress. American's don't realize how much easier agriculture is IN AMERICA (it's really got excellent climate, overall for it's size) .. again, this is attributed mostly to prayer & good weather from all the farmers praying.
But for me -- I presently live in a place that is known for it's extreme temperature & humidity, not uncommon to have a 10(c) flux in an hour, etc. We aren't religious here, or at least not extremely religious like America, and everybody gets to vote (or they pay a fine), and all the votes get counted, and everybody is really respectful to each-other despite being secular.
HOWEVER neither species we've discussed is presently legal where I am .. so as an foreigner, the punishments for being caught would be extremely unpleasant, bordering on "life destroying" (and ultimately I would be sent BACK to America). So everything must be stealth, covert, blabla, and it's even illegal to touch electrical wire unless I'm a licensed electrician out of over-zealous concern for fire. .. hint: as an immigrant, I'm not licensed to do anything. FML.
With agriculture being a biological process, it's innately a markov chain, each action, any discrete failure, impacts the rest of the chain, the organism gets stressed, it doesn't grow as well, maybe it fruits early, or not at all.
The /optimal/ growing conditions for cannabis & fungi are known to be different.
Once the HVAC systems are interconnected between two systems, the number of variables which can grow horribly wrong, and where balancing one impacts the other. Add more factors, such as experimenting with different cultivation cycles & processes, etc. the combined system(s) doesn't lend itself to micro-scale 'experimentation', .. interconnecting the two systems in a way they can co-exist, in theory, simple, in practice, not as simple. In practice you need a lot of sensors, automation, climate buffer zones, and/or patience & dealing with disappointment.
fwiw - I am trying to figure out how to micro-scale & automate the control systems. So if anybody says "yeah, this is easy" please show me how. I am designing a system I would like to take to Mars colony (not interested in the moon) and I basically don't see how NASA or SpaceX can build a sustainable mars colony without using fungi/Eukaryotes.
Finally -- for those who made it to the bottom of this post.
Fwiw mushrooms, i.e. oyster, reshi, can supposedly grow EXTREMELY FAST, like ~20x faster than 'normal' using high voltage stimulus, or potentially similar effects using cold-plasma) .. papers & studies, also look up 'fairy rings' where mushrooms grow in a circle after a lightning strike -- (this has been 'anecdotally' known for thousands of years).
>when it's all ~70F US (i.e. Los Angeles), farming there isn't hard, maybe the soil is bad,whaha...
You don't mention the huge, state-managed infrastructure needed to bring water to those places(which seem to be close to exhausting their supply.) I don't think it's climate that's made American agriculture so productive.
English is a funny language, the words chosen mean different things in each country's way of speaking. I'll try to describe based on my own experience:
A tourist is a person who shows up, stays at a hotel, frequently via the air-port or cruise ship. They don't really embrace the local culture aside from sight-seeing tourist type activities.
A Digital Nomad (DN) is almost like a tourist who lives in a country on a tourist visa - they don't open bank accounts, get national identity cards etc. They might rent an AirBNB and "live" in a country for a month or three at a time. It's not a vacation, it's a work/life 'hack', so they're in a foreign country but working (usually) in their host country. They are working in their host country living in another country.
Expat (Expatriate) is a "tax status", it refers to the money transfer .. somebody who is working abroad BUT is .. in their life-planning horizon expecting to return to their home, - they are like an indefinite tourist, they live & work in a host country, so not on vacation (has a job, place to live, permission to stay & work) .. but it's not actually indefinite. The host country doesn't expect them to stay forever and might even require them to leave periodically. An expat is I think always working or earning income in the host country, but ultimately sending the money back home country.
An immigrant is somebody who has left a place, and is going to stay at the new country indefinitely, they do not make any plans to return home (except to visit family), and perhaps they might want to bring their family to the new country. Their work status is irrelevant, they may not even have permission to work. An immigrant should have long term permission to stay in a country or they are considered a refugee, and may be expected leave, which is why being a refugee sucks so much. (I used to say I was an intellectual refugee from the US, but now that I understand how fucked life is for actual refugees I don't make that joke anymore)
Immigrants by my definition, the new place is their home, refugees are 'forced immigrants' from circumstances. Immigrants want to stay embrace the culture, social behaviors, blabla whereas an Expat is probably going to maintain more social identity & long term concern over how things are going "back home", also maintaining some identity or property, whereas an immigrant frequently would (at least in my mind) sell property, move assets to the new country/currency. Refugees on the other hand, they are staying in a country because it's unsafe to return.
I started as a DN, and now on the expat => immigrant spectrum.
I would like to know more, I have worked in Cannabis (built out one of the few type 7 extraction labs in California... my neighbor and friend is the DA for the DCC in California, and I have close contact with some of the largest outdoor growers in the state...
I'd be interested in hearing more and figuring out how to work more on this topic.
AFAIK all mycelium helps root systems, from the symbiotic relation, but in indoor, hydro type grows it might be harder.
What would be interesting is the combination of vertical mushroom grows and vertical hydro culture.
Imagine a tube/tower of mycelium, but also allowing the cannabis to grw out of the tube/tower... and having the root systems intertwined, but the problem therein is that the diff in the mycelium being perennial as opposed to the cannabis being annual...
I've experimented with vertical farming greens and mushrooms together; figuring out the schedule for the different colors of light can be a bit of a pain, but I used LEDs. - I stacked tote bins that I had drimmeled to interlock with eachother like a greenhouse. I don't think hydro would be possible without a super specialized fungus. If you ward off infections, regular hardwood based edible mushrooms work in dirt with vegetables. The mycelium doesn't seem to particularly help though. Greens and most edible mushrooms come from different substrates. I've yet to really look, but I suspect most desirable mushrooms won't be the best mutualists. There will probably be some that are more than a little valuable in balancing a polyculture though. I really want to find those pairs and groups, like we've discovered in say oaks or orchids, where they seemed to have evolved together.
Aside: Mushrooms are perennial but the mycelium doesn't always die away. And some are selfish in not so mutualistic ways too.
the co2 from the mycelium, let it build up, then periodically cycle into your vertical farm to increase the co2 concentration -- then watch your vegetables or whatever grow bigger!
Nitpick, but there are certainly parasitic fungi which do not have a symbiotic relationship with plants. Also only some fungi have a mycorrhizal relationship with plants. Most are saprophytic meaning they decompose dead organic material.
This is of course extremely beneficial and required for a closed ecosystem, but the symbiotic relationship isn't as direct as mycorrhizal fungi and is really part of a much more complex network of soil organisms that all need to be at play. Simply introducing a saprophytic fungi to your soil will probably not result in any benefits to your indoor cannabis garden.
My understanding is that Mycelium mostly helps with nutrient motility, moving them across roots of the plants. Potentially increasing bioavailability.
Some Eukaryotes are also reported to my mycellial connection with the plant (i.e. merge with the plants) some sort of forest underweb sort of thing, but I think that would be very difficult to reproduce insitu. Eukaryotes are amazing but also so diverse they defy classification.
An interesting application might be the grow media for hydroponic farms. While visiting an aquaponics farm it seemed the grow media was styrofoam based which didn't seem quite right. An organic based solution that's also biodegradable would seem much better/safer.
It might depend on the exploitation, but most raft methods (floating styrofoam board) I've seen will reuse the board so it's really not as bad as it seems.
As for the safe part, the concentration of plastics in the nutrient solution might be a tad higher, but the plant will only pick up a small fraction or none of it so there aren't any big health concerns on that front.
Not really no, more in the sense that plants growing in a field with more lead (not lead contaminated, just above-average) might pickup a bit more lead from the soil and still be good for human consumption.
If it's OK, can you explain the tech related roles at the company you were at? I think some sort of argo/bio science company would be interesting to work at.
It's a neat idea but also an impractical, unrealistic one. This sort of packaging can't be produced quickly like current green alternatives like compressed fiber. A lot of space is needed to let the packaging grow.
Just grow mushrooms for food and make packaging from other green materials.
You can try this at home, sort of. It will yield tasty mushrooms but will be too heavy to use for shipping. You can grow mushrooms on substrate in bags. After inoculation you can form the substrate (mostly wet sawdust) into different shapes within the bag.
Pre-made are pretty cool, but I'd be wary of DIY-ing mushroom cultures. There are several YouTube channels dedicated to this and they explain all the contingency that they use to prevent contamination and it's surprisingly non-trivial.
You can "clone" some mushrooms pretty easily. Oyster mushrooms and shiitake tend to be ageessive enough to out compete minor contamination (depends on where you live as to what contams are around). Make multiple slides. Pick the clean ones to move to grain spawn. One or two dishes in a quart jar of grain spawn. Don't expand too quickly/far - look for inoculation rates over 10% of the substrate mass when moving to fruiting substrate.
That said, just a dead air box/bag/room with lysol aerosol disinfectant (ethanol) for the trapped air and 70% isopropyl alcohol for surfaces is fairly effective. I'd be careful with fumes. I have a basic respirator like a 3M 5xxx or something.
I also tried a combination flowhood/glove box type thing. It works well if you have a new filter or leave it on. Otherwise, I think contamination just gets blown off of the filter once you do turn it on again.
I didn't mean for it to even go this deep. You don't need to actually culture the mushroom from scratch. You can buy syringes with liquid culture. Then just squirt it through the bag with sterilized grain spawn (pressure cooker can sterilize). Then transfers to the fruiting substrate can be done in a moderately cleaned room without any special devices using the aerosol and wipe alcohol with inoculation 10-20%. This is surprising effective, even for contamination prone stuff like lions mane (which I can never seem to culture from spores myself).
Yep, all of my amateur gourmet mushroom growing attempts have resulted in contamination sooner or later. The good attempts had several flushes before mold set in, the bad attempts created such foul odors they went straight into the compost (or garbage for the most offensive result)
Seems like creating an environment that certain funguses like but others don't is pretty tricky, and mostly relies on giving your chosen fungus a head start unless you can maintain perfect sterility.
> Seems like creating an environment that certain funguses like but others don't is pretty tricky, and mostly relies on giving your chosen fungus a head start unless you can maintain perfect sterility.
Yeah, all fungi like pretty much the same environment, so that's impossible but mushrooms need much more oxygen to grow. So it's important to have a lot of fresh air and a lot of humidity. Mycelium actually produces antifungal substances so it quite literally fights for domination of the substrate with others. The "trick" in any grow is to get as many flushes as possible until the mycelium gets too weak to protect itself. Keep in mind that the substrate is metabolised so it becomes less rich in nutrients over time, and mycelium is sitting in its own "piss" so to speak. So at some point it cannot fight other fungi anymore and substrate gets moldy. Even then, you usually have one type of mold winning over. It's pretty random what type of mold you'll get. I think it might be equally hard to grow one chosen type of mold as one type of mushroom...
Flow hoods for the win! You probably know that, but it should be said in case someone reading does not. If you can't buy one, diy a decent one, then keep the air in your workroom as stagnant as possible and cross your fingers.
The problem with flow hoods is that most people don't want to, or can't, leave them on indefinitely. Once theyre off, the air will carry contaminates to the clean side. That's basically what I realized after a DIY using setup that looks like an open front glovebox with a HEPA filter blowing air through it.
Yeah, I did a janky cardboard box and saran wrap glovebox when I tried to do my own innoculation... was a PITA to use, and contamination from that batch was worse than when I just went into a room with still air and crossed my fingers.
(didnt have HEPA filtered air blowing, that sounds like a good idea)
A big plastic tub with two arm holes cut out would be a much better solution.
And I hope by “glovebox” you mean a still-air box, because gloves attached to the box actually increase the contamination rate due to the box sucking in air when you move your hands.
yep, still air box is the correct term I think. It was a cardboard box with two armholes cut, and saran wrap stretched over the top.
Put all my equipment inside, stuck my arms in to more or less plug the holes, then sprayed a bunch of rubbing alcohol all over the inside, then got to work. The ergonomics were horrible, my back got tired, and I'm pretty sure my arms didn't plug the holes very well and I assume they effectively were pumping air through the system by the end of it as I got sloppier.
Definitely will do something better on any future attempts, haha
The easiest technique is getting a big plastic tub (>90 qts) from Walmart or Target, heating up a coffee can on the stove, and burning the arm holes in the side.
"The good attempts had several flushes before mold set in, "
Many of the commercial kits will grow mold after a few flushes too. Many will only guarantee a first flush. One trick I've heard of is leaving the block in an area with a lot of freash air movement after each flush, even placing them outside.
Commercial shiitake kit got mold on second flush, so I buried it in a raised bed. Nothing happened for a couple weeks, so I stopped checking it regularly, but then found a HUGE (unfortunately old) mushroom (and a few normal sized ones) growing from that spot about a month later. I think burying after first flush might be the best way to go - soil manages moisture and gas exchange needs pretty well already.
Excited to try growing stropharia wine caps soon! PNW is great climate for having a bunch of wood chips on top of garden beds anyways :D
This is such a fun channel, and it’s been great to see him getting into mycology. Here’s another one with Alan (and the dogs) in a coastal redwood forest.
> One of the market leaders in mycelium pack-tech is Ecovate Design, based in New York, which closed a $60 million round of funding last year. One of the company’s products is Mushroom® Packaging, which is made with just hemp hurd, a byproduct of the fiber hemp industry, and mycelium to form a solid composite form that is light, strong, fire, and water-resistant.
This is all well and good, but how do they manage to have a trademark on the word “mushroom”?
Because mushrooms are traditionally food, and not packaging, so the "trade" mark is relevant and claimable with respect to packing materials.
They would have difficulty enforcing the trademark against other uses of mushroom, and attempts to do so could result in their trademark being voided on breadth grounds.
I have a similar thought. Just to be clear though, it's a Brand and not a Trademark. I think brands do not have the restriction of being original since it's just the name you want to be identified by. But I could be missing something.
I remember reading about Eben and Gavin (founders of Ecovative which powers Mushroom Packaging) about 15 years ago in some promotional material from their alma mater. If I recall correctly, they did have a deal with Dell at one point for their packaging. It's cool to see they're still working on this and have raised quite a bit more money since then.
You have to grow the fungi on some organic material such as sawdust using a ton of energy and disposable plastics to sterilize and culture the mycelium. Why not simply use the sawdust or whatever as a soft packing material on its own?
In all of the use cases where I have seen mushroom packaging being called for, a traditional green packaging could have been used instead. Recycled paper is a very versatile material and is very easy to work with.
A wide variety of packaging can be made from cardboard & cardstock with a simple steel rule die. If custom shapes are needed, then compressed fiber like fast-food drink trays are an option. There are starch-based packing peanuts that can replace polystyrene peanuts. There's a lot more room for innovation beyond what we already have too, I think Amazon's paper mailers are a good example.
I'm with you 100% on this. I actually cultivate gourmet mushrooms as a hobby (started about 15 years ago when I took a course in university) and am a big fan of mycology and the importance of fungi ecologically, nutritionally, and medicinally.
However, there are, IMO, currently significant environmental downsides to indoor mushroom cultivation. Mushrooms are having a "moment" and there is a gold rush to throw them at everything under the sun.
Have you ever felt mycelium? Mycelium is much softer than loose sawdust. It’s very bouncy and porous.
There’s exceptions, of course. Reishi mycelium is extremely hard. A student once created a canoe out of Reishi mycelium and successfully paddled it around. Hobbyists who grow Reishi at home often complain how it is nearly impossible to scoop Reishi mycelium out of the jars they grow in. But I digress, the vast majority of species have soft mycelium.
I've grown mushrooms as a hobby for 15 years. All myceliated substrates harden when they dry out, regardless of the species of fungi. You are relying on this property when you pack something in it.
All the mycelium packing material examples I have seen involve a variation of packing a mold with myceliated substrate (usually sawdust) and then when the myclieum finishes colonizing the sawdust you dry it out to lock in the form.
Cool, I’ve been growing mushrooms as well for many years.
Even dried mycelium is much more airy then sawdust. Plus, using sawdust as a packing material will leave a mess when the customer unboxes their product. It’ll also cover the product itself. Mycelium will at least stay in one piece.
Ecovative has a spinoff (https://myforestfoods.com/) that makes a mushroom based "bacon" that I'd like to try. Last I heard they were only selling it at a few stores in upstate New York. Anyone tried it?
I'm glad to see work being done on packaging alternatives, especially biodegradable/compostable solutions. However I have one issue with using mushrooms: these life forms are so remarkable and so valuable for nutritional and medicinal purposes that the time and energy spent cultivating them just for packaging material is a terrific waste of resources in itself. Search "medicinal mushrooms" or "fantastic fungi" to gain an understanding of the extraordinary nutritive potency and medicinal potential of mycelial crops. Perhaps a symbiosis between mushroom growers and processers could be worked out, whereby nutrients and medicines are first extracted and concentrated, and the 'drosses' or fibrous remains are then processed into packing and construction materials. In other words, if you're taking the trouble to grow mushrooms, maximize your resource and production capabilities. The same sort of thing could be done with cannabis cultivars, could it not? I'm looking toward a future of zero waste, of all materials and energy generation.
It is in fact trivial to compost cardboard at home! I consider cardboard a valuable resource around the garden and use it for a variety of soil building related applications.
While this is cool, and I far prefer materials I can put in the compost pile over those bound for Trash Mountain, Incinerator, or Recycling Operation, the better action is to decrease demand by getting by with less, collectively. I'm not appealing to individuals to change their behavior, but to regulatory agencies so there's a sense of fairness.
Mushroom mycelium is organic material, so it is compostable. Why do you think it wouldn’t be?
In fact, mycelium composts faster since it contains more nutrients than cardboard. Leftover mycelium is nutritious enough to be used as fertilizer for growing other crops.
> If cement manufacturing alone were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of CO2 on the planet. Since mushrooms are relatively easy to feed, can be grown anywhere, and are appealing to increasingly environmentally aware consumers, we expect to see significant growth in mushroom tech solutions in building materials.
Mushrooms are not plants. They don't photosynthesize and fix carbon dioxide from the air. Growing mushrooms is still carbon positive. It's important to understand that this is an organism that respires, so these generic claims about a carbon benefit need much more analysis to understand whether there is in fact a benefit at scale.
By themselves they may not remove carbon from the air but they do sequester carbon by consuming carbon stores and converting them into different products.
You could, in theory, make a wolffia farm (Wolffia being the fastest growing plant on the planet and very carbon hungry to boot) and feed the wolffia to mushrooms to convert them into building, clothing, and packing materials and thus create a cycle of utilitarian carbon sequestration
> they do sequester carbon by consuming carbon stores
They can't sequester any more carbon than was in the feed stock. And when you're trying to sell a biodegradable thing (which I think is laudable), this would have a minimal net effect on carbon for a material that is readily disposed and biodegrades within a few weeks. The benefits of reducing plastic waste, landfill, and pollution are obvious. The carbon benefits are less clear. Paper packaging from pulp waste comes directly from a photosynthetic resource, and may be found to be equivalent materials. So the argument for mushrooms as an intermediate seems like it needs more explanation -- to me anyway. Obviously, a bioplastic that never degrades is a far better carbon sink than a material that degrades readily, but then you are generating waste that must be stored somewhere indefinitely. Not a problem for a building material, but obviously not great for packaging. But I don't see how a building material made from mushrooms could ever sequester more carbon than, you know, wood.
It's about speed. Wolffia can double in size every day whereas the fastest growing woods can take years to double in size.
Also, while Wolffia is human and livestock edible, to make it safe for consumption would require precise control over the growth media to prevent unhealthy buildup of contaminants whereas using it as feed for self-growing building materials, clothing materials, and packaging materials is a viable alternative.
It would require little by way of energy, be a carbon-negative process practically from the start, help supplant a more dangerous industry (plastics and foams) with a safer one, and the waste products would be compostable organics.
Further, Wolffia prefers mildly acidic, highly carbonated water for optimal growth, so you could boost production by percolating carbon-heavy air into the water, and for secondary utility you could also grow fish in the vats to provide additional fertilizer for the Wolffia while also farming a secondary source of income, or failing that you could incorporate these farms into wastewater cleanup plants, allowing them to help provide clean drinking water for cities while also absorbing carbon out of the air, locking that carbon into static pieces, and then growing useful materials from them all in one fell swoop.
So, yeah, wood has its uses and is a great carbon sink, but for sheer quantity and speed Wolffia and mushrooms have it beat.
There is a problem though, and that is getting Wolffia to grow in a farm is a difficult process that we do not have mastered. It can be done but it takes time and skill to get started, and would require maintenance above and beyond traditional farm work, but if that problem were solved then it would be a good thing all around.
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