Fungus Hungry For Plastic

More Than Mere Magic Mushrooms
By Bill Weir, C. Michael Kim, David Miller, Justin Bare & Mark Monroy | This Could Be Big
This week we're talking about fungus two ways. One that can survive exclusively on polyurethane and another that can replace Styrofoam.
Both polyurethane and Styrofoam are not biodegradable, so without a solution, all the plastic bottles and old toys we throw out every year will be sitting in landfills for centuries.
Yes, you can recycle plastic, but that just means turning it into another product and recycling hasn't sufficiently slowed the production of new plastic.
According to a Yale study, globally we produced 245 million tons of plastic in 2006, compared to only 1.5 million tons in 1950. One of the fungi we're looking at is called pestalotiopsis microspora. It was discovered by a group of Yale researchers on an expedition in Ecuador and can subsist on polyurethane alone in airless environments, like the bottom of a landfill.
The other comes from a couple of college friends who discovered that the sticky substance on the bottom of mushrooms called mycelium could be turned into a glue and when that glue is combined with corn husks and other food byproducts it takes on a form similar to Styrofoam. Their company, Ecovative wants used Styrofoam to become mulch, not waste.
A future with less plastic and more mulch, all thanks to fungus.
MTW- I have, for some time, been hoping that just such an organism would be found; we need to rid our numerous and many decades old landfills of products which are not bio-degradable. This should give anyone who cares about the environment a good feeling. By the way, I am not a tree hugger, yet we all need to take care of our Planet.
GOD BLESS YOU ALL!
Posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy