Team:Cornell/project/background/ecovative

Ecovative Design

Our research is inspired by Ecovative Design, a company in upstate New York that manufactures a biodegradable Styrofoam substitute. The company uses fungal mycelium to knit together various agricultural byproducts, such as dead wheat, dry grass, and corn husks. The final product is an insulating, waterproof, foam-like solid that decomposes one month after it is buried in soil [1].

Ecovative's mission is to eventually replace all Styrofoam products with their eco-friendly material. To date they have partnered with Dell Inc., Steelcase Inc., and several other companies to build alternatives to their current Styrofoam products. The company has received grants from the EPA, the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, and the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute. Ecovative was also honored with the Department of Environmental Conservation's 2012 Environmental Excellence Award and the DuPont Packaging Innovation Award [2]. Their product won the PICNIC Green Challenge, the world's largest prize for solutions addressing climate change.

The product that we are seeking to improve, known as Mushroom Packaging, is a sustainable and necessary alternative to Styrofoam. Polystyrene can take hundreds of years to degrade in landfills and produces dozens of chemical toxins upon combustion, thus posing difficulties for disposal. Recycling of Styrofoam is incredibly inefficient at all levels; it suffers from low rates of recovery from consumers as most cities do not accept it for recycling, it is expensive to sort and transport to the appropriate specialized processing plant, and the actual process of recycling it involves high temperature and pressure conditions that consume large amounts of energy. Ecovative’s alternative requires only two feedstocks, fungal inoculum and sterilized plant matter, both of which readily degrade in the environment. The fungi used in their products are not typically used for food purposes and can be easily isolated and grown in controlled conditions. The feedstocks can include any form of plant matter, but the material properties vary with the feedstock. They have found that currently under-utilized components of agricultural waste are optimal for their production. In this way, they are able to avoid using components that are in higher demand, such as food crops or even compost. For these and other considerations, their product has been granted the Cradle to Cradle Gold Certification [1].