Biodegradable Styrofoam Substitute Available Now – Mushroom Mycelium!
In 2007 two mechanical engineering graduates, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, started Ecovative Design based on a patent pending process they developed for a business class. Inspired by mushroom root balls in the Vermont woods, they used the underside of a dorm bed as an incubator for introducing fungal mycelium to agricultural byproducts. The mycelium grows for 5-10 days transforming and loose agriculture materials like rice hulls or cotton gin trash into an all-natural rigid material with similar properties and costs as synthetic foams.