This video is brought to you by Curiosity
Stream. Plastic changed the course of manufacturing
forever, but a lot of that came at a cost that's plaguing us now. About 91% of plastic
isn’t recycled and we consume about 5 grams of micro plastic waste in our food every week.
But there's a possible solution: fungus. Yes, fungus. Mycelium technology might be the next
big boom ... like this mycelium brick ... a plastic-like replacement with many uses and
new opportunities for products … maybe even wearable technology. Let's explore mycelium
technology and how it can help us achieve a more renewable and cleaner future ... and
one where we don't end up eating so much plastic. I'm Matt Ferrell … welcome to Undecided. When we think about plastics, different types,
shapes, colors and sizes, like soda bottles, spring to mind. But, from a chemist's perspective,
they're all are made of the same class of materials: polymers. While Bakelite, which
was the first synthetic plastic created from organic compounds, was created in 1907, polymers
weren't discovered until 1920 by Hermann Staudinger. A polymer is a broad term that encompasses
a substance with large molecules made up of repeating subunits that are bonded together. Just as it was for several other materials,
World War II was a great impetus for the development of plastic and chemical innovations, like
Polyethylene, Polystyrene, and Nylon. It’s kind of a dark side of innovation, but war
can help accelerate things. Later in the 1950s, plastics manufacturers started to make consumer
products as an outlet for the materials they developed in the war. To quote the movie “The
Graduate,” “Just one word … Plastics.” During that decade, manufacturers introduced
polyester and polypropylene, one of the most used polymers in the world. Plastics have made our life a lot easier to
store liquid and food, it costs much less than other materials, it’s water and heat
resistant, and durable. Sadly, the plastic industry oversold it’s recyclability … it’s
cheaper to make new than to recycle old. Combine that with its excessive use and non-biodegradable
nature and plastics have become one of the most wide-spread, harmful substances around
the world. In America, 100 billion plastic bags are thrown
away every year, not to mention all other packaging materials made of plastics that
are discarded. The problem is that they can hang around in the environment for hundreds
of years, and burning plastics releases toxic chemicals that can harm plants and animals.
But it turns out that we may have a robust, sustainable alternative to replace plastic:
Mycelium. This organism is the underground, root-like
body for fungi that produce mushrooms. So if you compare it to a plant, mycelium is
the root and the mushroom is the flower. The mushrooms that we eat are only a small, visible
part of a much larger organism. Fungi are important in ecosystems due to their
ability to recycle nutrients, allowing previously locked away nutrients to become available
to other organisms, like plants. And they’re surprisingly robust and able
to spread easily under the right conditions. All it takes is a few spores to germinate.
As it grows it releases enzymes to digest the surroundings and absorb the nutrients.
Eventually the cells begin to branch out and continue to grow to build a vast mycelial
network, and it’s only when it’s fully built that mushrooms begin to grow. And this
is where we can tap into its potential. Rather than letting a mushroom pop up, humans
can create forms around the mycelium as they grow to build predictable structures by providing
a framework. This is an example of mycelium grown into a brick form. It’s not that different
from using molds with inorganic materials like metal or plastic. We’re just letting
Mother Nature do the work. The production process is kind of simple. It uses a mix of
agricultural waste, which could be anything from hemp to wood chips, and it’s bound
with mycelium structures. After that, we have the base material for
most mycelium-based products, known as **the foam**. This mixture is put in molds for whatever
you’re trying to make, and placed in an environment with controlled CO2, humidity
levels, airflow, and temperature. It’s a pretty quick process. Fibers can be found
after just a few hours and a visible layer after a day or two. Usually within a week
the mycelium foam fills the mold. Overall, it takes about a week. Mycelium foam is a great insulator, resilient,
safe, strong, and biodegradable, which opens up the possibilities for a wide range of products,
like packaging, clothing, construction, and even food. Unlike plastics and other synthetic
materials – which can take hundreds of years to decompose - mycelium-based products naturally
degrade after their intended product cycle. A nice bonus, mycelium foam is inexpensive
and cost-competitive with polystyrene foam. Mycelium technology has spawned a lot of companies
from several industries around the world. The pioneer was Ecovative, which introduced
mycelium technology in 2006. With more than 40 patents in 31 countries, most mycelium
composites and materials out there are actually made under their license. Ecovative developed several branches of products.
Its MycoFlex™ technology, for example, is used to produce everything from lightweight
insulating lofts for gloves to high-performance foams in footwear. It's heat resistant, insulating,
breathable, and strong. In packaging materials, they've created a
high-performing, cost-competitive solution that provides thermal insulation, water resistance,
and decomposes in the soil within 45 days. It’s a great alternative for polystyrene.
Even better, mushroom-based packaging uses only 12% of the energy from plastic production
and generates 90% less CO2 equivalents. Some examples of companies licensing this technology
are the Magical Mushroom Company is the U.K., Paradise Packaging Co in California, Grown.bio
in the Netherlands, and BioFab in New Zealand. And IKEA announced that they’re going to
replace styrofoam packaging with MycoComposite for all of its products. I wonder if they'll
give it a name? Ecovative has also spun out Atlast Food Co.
which creates whole cut plant-based meats. Unlike other plant-based meats, the products
from Atlast have almost no processing. And apologies to the vegetarians out there … this
might be a little gross … but part of the reason it works so well as a fake meat is
because mycelium fibers grow together in a tissue that resembles the fiber-like texture
of muscle tissues in animals. Interesting … if not a little gross. So we’ve had packaging and food, but what
about clothing? Bolt Threads is using their Mylo™ technology as a sustainable alternative
to leather that we’ll be seeing in the market through their partners, which I’m sure you’re
very familiar with, Adidas, Kering, Lululemon, and Stella McCartney. By the way, Adidas has
recently launched the Adidas’ Stan Smith Mylo — the first shoe of its type to be
made with a mushroom-based material. It was used in the classic three stripes, heel tab
overlay and signature branding that their shoes are known for. One question you may be asking yourself, I
know I asked it when I was learning about this stuff, is the fungus still alive and
can it keep growing within the products? I don’t think I’d want a pair of growing
shoes. Although... that might save parents a lot of money on if their kids shoes grew
as fast as their feet. For most commercial products, mycelium is heated long before it
reaches the customer in order to kill it, maintain the product's intended form and prevent
growing mushrooms and spewing spores. As if the trifecta of packaging, food, and
clothing wasn’t enough … let’s step up to a quadfecta. But before getting to that, I'd like to thank
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below and thanks to CuriosityStream, and to all of you, for supporting the channel. So
back to the quadfecta ... Mycelium has also been used in the building
industry. One example is the UK-based startup Biohm. It's been producing a mycelium insulation
panel that will be the world’s first accredited mycelium insulation product. The company manufactures
mycelium rigid insulation in accordance with industry standard 1200 x 2400mm sizing, but
custom panels can be manufactured to meet the needs of any project. In addition to being healthier and safer,
Mycelium outperforms petrochemical/plastic-based construction materials in thermal and acoustic
insulation. Tests show an acoustic absorption of at least 75% at 1000Hz for mycelium panels,
which is the typical frequency of road traffic noise. On top of that, during a fire, mycelium
doesn't cause harmful toxic smoke since it's not made of synthetic, resin-based compounds. But using mushrooms as a weight-bearing construction
material still requires extensive research and development. It isn't as strong and doesn't
have a long useful lifecycle when compared to most building materials. For example, concrete
can withstand between 4,000 psi - 10,000 psi, while mushroom bricks can only hold up 30
psi. But an architectural team known as The Living
designed the world's first mushroom brick tower in 2014. The bricks used to construct
the building were grown in three separate molds. It consisted of 10,000 bricks and reached
40-feet into the air. Prior to building the tower, engineers subjected
the bricks to accelerated aging - a process that simulated three years of weathering over
the course of three weeks. One of the coordinators at The Living said: “After three years of accelerated aging
the material performed exactly the same as it did originally,” A structure made of mycelium was also built
for the Dutch Design Week. The Growing Pavilion was a temporary events space built with mycelium
panels supported on a timber frame. But we’re not stopping at the quadfecta
… does that mean we’ve reached the pentafecta? Is that a word? Pentafecta? I’m going with
it. Well, the pentafecta for mycelium is possibly in wearables … not clothing … but wearable
technology. A curious use of mycelium was investigated
in a recent study titled '[Reactive fungal wearable](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.05670.pdf)'.
The researchers explored the use of fungi as a potential candidate for bio wearables.
Processors in tech wearables like Fitbits could be replaced by incorporating mushroom
mycelium. The researchers performed experiments on the
electrical response of a hemp fabric captured by oyster fungi. They attached it to computer
sensors and stimulated it with attractants and repellents. The oyster mushroom mycelium
was able to recognize several external stimuli like temperature, moisture, light, some chemicals
in the environment, and even electrical signals in a way that imitates the same function for
sensors and processors. Dr. Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi, a researcher
with the UOC’s Scene Understanding and Artificial Intelligence Lab (SUNAI), and the author of
the study said: >"We can reprogramme a geometry and graph-theoretical
structure of the mycelium networks and then use the fungi’s electrical activity to realize
computing circuits. Fungi do not only respond to stimuli and trigger signals accordingly,
but also allow us to manipulate them to carry out computational tasks, in other words, to
process information.” With that pentafecta of applications you can
start to see the potential. The more I say “pentafecta” the worse it sounds. In 2019,
the global mushroom market reached a value of US$ 53.7 Billion, and it's expected that
it can reach US$ 86.6 Billion by 2025, which is a CAGR of 8.3%. A combo of cost-efficiency, consumer response,
and government policies to reduce the use of plastics will drive the mycelium market.
In the U.S., for example, Maine's state government has banned polystyrene food containers, and
the legislation is looking like it will spread to Colorado, Vermont, New Jersey, and Oregon
as well. That action may also pave the way for a national campaign against styrofoam,
which is a substance virtually impossible to recycle. The ban is expected to force restaurants
and grocery stores to look for new options, making room for mushroom packaging to grow.
Yeah … that was a bad joke. While restaurants and grocery store owners
may not be going for mushroom packaging yet because of slightly higher costs, economies
of scale and government support could result in more opportunities and reduced costs. There’s
a lot of possibility for mycelium-based products to branch out in the near future, and become
a popular packaging material. For the other uses of mycelium, like clothing, food, and
construction materials, time will tell if they can make it to the mainstream. So what do think? Any uses I missed? Would
you want to live in a mycelium insulated home? Jump into the comments and let me know. If
you liked this video be sure to check out one of the ones I have linked right here.
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always, thanks to all of my patrons and a big welcome to new Producers Cowboy Steve
and Kevin Janflone. Your support really helps to make these videos possible. And thanks
to all of you for watching. I’ll see you in the next one.
Am I missing something? This mentions nothing about plastic food packaging, it only seems useful in replacing things that can already, and are already, being replaced by cardboard... Not a single mention of plastic bottles, food packaging etc.
Interesting concept. I didn't realize that mycelium based products, like shoes and mushroom leather as shown in the video, were so close to market. It seems like various biotechs are on the verge of making a big impact. The one I've been keeping my eye on is precision fermentation.
No such thing as "mycelium fungus." Mycelium is a type of fungal growth structure.
Satisfactory.
No.
Damn... the tupperware has been in the fridge for too long... its a bit fuzzy.
5 grams of microplastic in our food every week? Is there proof for that, that seems like a lot
For this to be a viable replacement, it needs to match current plastic output or global shift in plastic use (then match that).
I think stuff like this is great, but I think in regards to replacing plastic the battle isn’t finding alternatives it’s going to be toppling these giant manufacturers like Dow and Exxon. It’s the same thing we are dealing with concerning energy. We’ve known about alternatives for decades.