Biopackaging grows from mushroom roots, crop waste
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eben Bayer and business partner Gavin McIntyre looked at mushrooms and invented a lightweight biopackaging material that may compete with polystyrene in the packaging industry.
Made from mushroom roots and crop wastes such as rice hulls, the composite, dubbed EcoCradle, requires little energy to produce, can be grown in custom-shaped molds and is fire-resistant and biodegradable, say its developers. Their composite is used like Styrofoam to wrap around and cushion fragile products.
Bayer and McIntyre plan to go into full production of the material in Green Island, New York, in early 2010 and to ship 100,000 molded pieces. They applied for a patent on the product and started their company, Ecovative Design LLC, in 2007. "I grew up on a farm in Vermont and literally saw these mycelium (mushroom roots) holding the forest floor together," Bayer said during an interview on Tuesday. The key moment as an inventor, he said, was "seeing it as making packaging, not food."
While students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Bayer and McIntyre experimented with hundreds of mushrooms to find the strongest roots. "It's very lightweight," said Bayer, and can compete with polystyrene on cost. EcoCradle weighs 6-8 lbs per cubic foot. Production begins with a slurry that is poured into a mold, where the tiny intertwining roots bind seed husks into a stiff conglomerate with a white coating. Then it is dried in a low temperature oven. A version of the composite is being tested as an exterior insulation for buildings.
