| Mushrooms the new packaging? |
By: Rebecca Hubbard
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Posted: Thursday, August 12, 2010 11:38 am
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According to a US firm, a protective packaging it produces, which is made out of mushrooms, uses less carbon dioxide than traditional plastic foam.
The company, Ecovative Design, say the EcoCradle is made from their Mycobond composite of mushroom roots and agricultural waste. This raw product can be used as compost after the products have been shipped.
Gavin McIntyre and Eben Bayer, founders, said the manufacture of the packaging uses an eighth of the energy of foam packaging and a tenth of the carbon dioxide normally used.
McIntyre said: "We don't manufacture materials, we grow them. We're converting agricultural by-products into a higher-value product."
The future of development for the packaging is to create a less-energy intensive sterilisation process as it would reduce the energy required in manufacture to one fortieth of that of standard expanded polymers.
According to McIntyre, the material has another economic benefit - not being prone to price fluctuations. "All of our raw materials are inherently renewable and they are literally waste streams," he said.
The two founders plan to replace the current steam-heat sterilisation process with a treatment made from cinnamon-bark, thyme, oregano and lemongrass oils.
Ecovative have also created insulation made from the material, as well as packaging. The research on the material is backed by a grant from the US National Science Foundation, which totals $180,000. |
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