Mushrooms Will Save The Planet

No, that's not a typo. Nor is it a pitch to, as Timothy Leary might have asked "turn on, tune in and drop out." What it is instead is the principle that animates Ecovative Design, a new company using the mycelium roots of mushrooms in an attempt to completely eliminate styrofoam from the earth.

Ecovative founder Eben Bayer just gave the best fellows presentation at Pop!Tech so far. Their assertion is first, that styrofoam, or "toxic white stuff," as they refer to it, is killing our planet and setting our planet up for "systemic collapse."

Indeed, there is little as exemplary of our culture of waste as styrofoam. While it has a huge number of uses - insulation in homes, for example - it is mostly used for packaging, disposable cups, and all sorts of other byproducts of our lust for convenience.

Ecovative's assertion is that whatever replaces styrofoam needs to: come from multiple sources (so we're not setting ourselves up for disaster by relying entirely on one thing), have a lower cost in terms of CO2 (turns out that one cubic foot of styrofoam has the CO2 foot print of a gallon of gasoline), and has to participate in "nature's recycling system."

Not only is the idea good, the potential market makes me salivate. This is an example of a new product that could fundamentally disrupt a 20th century "unovation," and in the process, if they do it right, create a ton of financial value as well.

Check out the company here.

(Photo: Styrofoam mountain behind Tokyo fish market, by Complefixy)