Mushrooms, Rice Husks, and Buckwheat - Replacements for Plastic?

MycoBond materials can act like styrofoam, but they're renewable, compostable, use less energy to produce, and can be made anywhere.

We know how bad plastic is for the environment and for our health, but while there are plenty of ways to reduce our consumption of it, some applications—like shipping and packaging—are just not easily replaced.

Styrofoam is product designer Eben Bayer's particular pet peeve. He calls it "toxic white stuff," and in his TED video says that production of a single cubic foot of styrofoam uses the energy equivalent of 1.5 liters of petrol.

On a global scale, that's a lot of oil going into a material that's often used once before ending up in the trash—which helps explain how it takes up 25 percent of U.S. landfill space.

So Bayer wanted to find a replacement for it—a material that a), can be created anywhere, b), uses significantly less energy to produce (he's not talking just 10-percent reductions here), and c), can fit into what he calls "nature's recycling system."

And he did, when he and his partner, Gavin McIntyre, discovered the magic of mushrooms. Bayer says mycelium is analogous to a mushroom's root structure, and describes it as a self-assembling material: it takes things we would consider waste, like seed husks or woody biomass, and forms it into a polymer that can then be molded just like plastic is.

Nature's recycling center
Essentially, mycelium functions like a recycling center—reusing materials we would otherwise throw out—but also like a glue—holding those materials together in a format we can really use.

The result is a renewable, compostable material that can stand in for many plastics and styrofoam products. Better yet, Bayer said the company's ultimate vision is a network of local manufacturing systems, and they made formulations for all different parts of the world vision is local manufacturing—so rice husks can be used in China, while buckwheat husks or oat hulls can be used in North America or Europe.

It's been reported that MycoBond is already being used in as packing material around the U.S., has potential for use in building construction, and promises to become even more popular as the company continues to make improvements.