Meet the mushroom that could one day replace plastic

[Elderberry]

The Verge by Justine Calma 2/22/2023

This fungus might be able to replace plastic parts for electronics, vehicles, and sports equipment.



Tinder bracket fungus / hoof fungus / horse’s hoof (Fomes fomentarius) on a fallen tree trunk in Belgium.

Here’s one more reason to love a good mushroom: one day, you might be able to make headphones, memory foam for shoes, or even aircraft exoskeletons with it. Researchers just assessed the engineering possibilities with one particularly impressive mushroom and found that it might be able to replace plastic in a whole bunch of different use cases.

Using mushrooms instead of plastic could cut down on the mountains of waste humans create. Plastics made out of fossil fuels are actually really difficult to recycle and usually wind up cluttering landfills, landscapes, and waterways. Materials made with mushrooms, on the other hand, would be biodegradable and could be reused at the end of a product’s life to make more of the same stuff.

The fungus Fomes fomentarius is the focus of new research published today in the journal Science Advances. It has the remarkable ability to yield a wide range of materials with different properties — from soft and spongelike to tough and woody. By studying the architecture of the mushroom, researchers hope to pave the way for it to become a more sustainable building block of our lives.

More: https://www.theverge.com/23610087/mushroom-plastic-waste-research