GREEN ISLAND, NY — A packaging material made of mushroom roots and agricultural waste is lowering its energy footprint further with new sterilizing technology.
Ecovative Design, the maker of EcoCradle packaging and Greensulate insulation, creates its products by growing mushroom fibers on waste like cotton seed, wood fiber and buckwheat hulls.
To keep other spores off of the material, Ecovative uses a steam heat process, but with the help of an $180,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), it's working on a sterilization treatment made with natural oils that uses significantly less energy.
Ecovative's MycoBond technology already consumes one-tenth the energy used to manufacture foam packaging. The new treatment, made with a mix of cinnamon bark oil, thyme oil, oregano oil and lemongrass oil, lowers its energy needs down to one-fortieth, or about 2.5 percent, of that of foam.
The new method also allows Ecovative to grow its materials in the open air, and not just in the clean room environments it currently needs to grow. To make its packaging and insulation, Ecovative creates plastic molds, fills them with agricultural waste and adds mycelia, mushroom roots, which grown around and digest the waste. Once the material has grown into the shape, it's heat treated to stop the growth, and the packaging is done.
The company's EcoCradle packaging is being used by some Fortune 500 companies and others like Steelcase, which earlier this year announced it would ship certain products with EcoCradle, starting with its Currency line.
Founded in 2007 by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduates Gavin McIntyre and Eben Bayer, Ecovative has also received support from the USDA Agricultural Research Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, in addition to the grant from the NSF's Small Business Innovation Research program.
EcoCradle - Edward Browka, Ecovative Design
I like popcorn as a packaging
I like popcorn as a packaging material.
It can be reused as bird feed in my backyard!
It does take heat to make; I wonder how its footprint would compare with the (steam augmented) method proposed above?
If this method takes an ag waste and makes it a useable product (food for mushrooms that can be used as packaging, then composted afterwards), it sounds potentially worthwhile.
Did I read "plastic
Did I read "plastic molds?"
What is the benefit over plastic styrofoam if plastic is still part of the process?
Sounds nice. The point is
Sounds nice. The point is that the paper does not explain what happens next with this kind of packaging. What sort of mushrooms "behaviour" will we encounter after the disposal of this product? It could be rather unpredictable and thus at least unpleasant.
The whole technology seems too sophisticated/over-engineered.
Much easier and environmentally-friendly is the use of corrugted paper or cardboard, shredded paper, straw, hay, dry leaves, saw-dust, wood shavings, cut-offs of fabric - all these materials actually made of plant fibres and naturally degradable in ecosystems. In some cases they also can be used as soil fertilisers, fuel, mulch, litter for cattle and/or composted. It is not obvious that the mushroom packaging can be used so widely and safely.
All these issues we address in our courses and workshops, where you are welcome. The time-table of our workshops and CPD courses are available on BioTRIZ site (www.biotriz.com) where you are mostly welcome.
Kind regards,
Nikolay Bogatyrev.
P.S. Mushrooms do not have roots. Those "roots" actually are the very bodies of mushrooms.