[HN Gopher] Compostable fungi-based replacement for styrofoam
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Compostable fungi-based replacement for styrofoam
Author : gruuya
Score : 107 points
Date : 2022-04-26 11:05 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.soma.eco)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.soma.eco)
| brink wrote:
| > 04 - Reduce cost for packaging
|
| So it's cheaper? By how much?
| machinerychorus wrote:
| Probably by an order of magnitude if you factor in all the
| externalities. Unfortunately, those externalities probably
| won't make a difference on the sticker price.
| formvoltron wrote:
| Obviously that's not the point.
| levitate wrote:
| It's a pretty big point, if you want your product to get
| picked up by margin-focused corporations.
| ruc0la wrote:
| Composting emits CO2
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| If you're doing it right and using it as soil ammendment, a
| portion remains in the soil, building up the soil humus. In the
| long run it can be carbon negative.
|
| I could see making something like this from food waste and then
| just burying it in the ground.
| danans wrote:
| CO2 that was sequestered from the atmosphere. That's very
| different than CO2 in polystyrene which is fossil fuel derived.
| hristov wrote:
| It emits no more CO2 than the thing being composted soaked up
| when growing. So it will emit less than the amount the
| mushrooms absorbed. This is the cycle of life. This is not a
| problem.
|
| The problem is when you emit CEO that has been absorbed over
| hundreds of millions of years and fossilized in oil and gas all
| within 100 years or so.
| yakubin wrote:
| _> The problem is when you emit CEO that has been absorbed
| over hundreds of millions of years and fossilized in oil and
| gas all within 100 years or so._
|
| This typo made my day.
| daenz wrote:
| Very cool. I'm convinced that as innovators start taking climate
| change more seriously, we're going to see incredible new products
| and processes. I'm sure it won't be enough to quell the death
| cult hysteria, but will make a huge impact in course correction.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I for one welcome our new Biosporin overlords.
| _dain_ wrote:
| i hate and distrust fungi. sinister organisms. don't turn your
| back on them.
| pampa wrote:
| All fungi are edible! Tho some you can eat only once.
| tandr wrote:
| To think of it - we are a food for fungi too!
| dmje wrote:
| We should definitely watch out. There's not mushroom on this
| planet.
| timeon wrote:
| I wonder if there is something like this also for building
| insulation.
| Digerron wrote:
| cool
| pampa wrote:
| Once i had an idea: instead of styrofoam or packing peanuts just
| use pop corn or puff rice. Thermal insulation, shock absorbent
| and biodegradable! Not sure about flame resistant. Also reusable.
| Make a mash, add some amylase and yeast and you can distill
| biofuel. Win-win.
|
| EDIT: (fungal aspect) seed it with the right spores for container
| shipping and you get some free penicillin upon delivery!
| elefantastisch wrote:
| It seems like it would be impossible to prevent bugs and
| rodents from getting into packages in facilities that process
| packages if there was this much free food available.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| This is the main issue with things like popcorn and other
| foodstuffs: Insects and other pests truly love it. Suddenly,
| you have an insect problem in places that don't have food.
| w-j-w wrote:
| Biganon wrote:
| I've had stuff delivered to me packed with actual pop corn.
| Don't remember what it was, but a small object.
| _jal wrote:
| My mother ran a small herb business (medicinal plants that
| weren't illegal at the time, to be clear) a long time ago. She
| also sold tincture bottles and other related things, and
| shipped things in popcorn.
|
| She was careful about bugs and rodents and such, and provided a
| "what's this about" note in the box that also had suggestions
| for what to do with it, but it still seemed to weird some
| people out. Maybe people are more open to stuff like this now.
|
| Her shop was very small. I suspect bugs, etc. would be
| problematic for anyone doing volume.
| legulere wrote:
| Packing peanuts are often made out of corn starch. The problem
| is how the packaging comes from the receiver to a sensible use.
| Digerron wrote:
| nicw
| selfsimilar wrote:
| I'm heartened by the interest in better packaging and it seems
| like it's having a moment. Last week Cruz Foam[0] (probably a
| direct competitor) had an announcement that it had some celebrity
| investors[1]. It's probably not a popular opinion but I think
| adding more regulations or incentives (tax breaks) to discourage
| the use of non-biodegradable packaging, especially in foods, is
| long overdue.
|
| [0] - https://www.cruzfoam.com [1] -
| https://www.cruzfoam.com/post/meet-our-new-investors-advisor...
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| Yeah, we have incentives to insulate homes but they all use
| terrible tech. The best solution still off-gases and can be
| dangerous if done improperly.
| selfsimilar wrote:
| Home insulation has a longer useful life than most packaging,
| but you're right that it still usually ends up in a landfill.
| However the current incentives for home insulation are very
| different - usually to reduce home heating/cooling costs and
| reduced energy consumption is usually an environmentally
| sound policy. Should there be further incentives to encourage
| insulation alternatives which have a more eco-friendly end of
| life? Absolutely. And that is likely a harder problem given
| the productive lifetime of an average home, but definitely a
| worthy place to also put further incentives.
| myshpa wrote:
| I think one of the solutions may be based on hemp,
| currently known as hempcrete or hemp concrete - essentially
| a mix of hemp hurd (the woody essence of the hemp plant),
| hydraulic lime, and water.
|
| You mix it up and then all you need is just the wooden
| frame (if you're building load bearing walls), then you
| wrap it in hempcrete (floors, walls & roof), apply some mud
| plaster and you're done. No need for 6-10 layers full of
| plastics & glues.
|
| Thanks to use of lime instead of cement the building even
| captures CO2, as the walls literally turn into stone over
| time.
|
| Some hemp buildings are 200+ years old, in some cave in
| india they've even found 1500 y.o. hempcrete, and you can
| compost whole building at EOL.
|
| Some other benefits: non-toxic, no off-gassing, no
| solvents, mold resistance, high vapor permeability,
| humidity control, durable, sustainable, carbon
| sequestration, fire and pest resistance, passive self
| regulation of temperature and humidity, great insulator
| zionic wrote:
| Look up "zip system 2.0 Matt Risinger" on YouTube.
|
| Seems like the best available today.
| danans wrote:
| Zip system sheathing, while great, is not enough. You still
| need either cavity wall insulation or exterior insulation
| or both.
|
| For cavity wall insulation, dense packed cellulose is a
| carbon negative option currently widely available.
| balaji1 wrote:
| what is the toxicity of these compostable materials to humans
| and animals? Also do we understand long-term health impacts?
|
| Though these shouldn't be worse than the plastic/styrofoam that
| is so prevalent today.
| sbeckeriv wrote:
| can i eat it?
| gruuya wrote:
| Funny enough, my initial impression was that it looks tasty as
| it reminded me of Camembert cheese.
| jl6 wrote:
| What kind of products could you package using this material that
| you couldn't package in cardboard?
| formvoltron wrote:
| Cool looks kind of like tempeh.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Looks like tempeh. Can you eat it?
| ozten wrote:
| How long does it take to grow one unit? How much space does that
| unit take up during growth? How stable is the product before use?
|
| Very cool stuff, my take-away from reading about earlier fungi-
| base packaging is that it is hard to scale in a cost effective
| way. I've grown oyster mushroom "leather" which was fun, but took
| about 6 weeks for a 3" diameter.
| desireco42 wrote:
| It is wonderful but in the past these could not be produced in
| large quantities enough to be actually used as packaging. It
| takes long to grow fungi and not all succeed.
|
| In general happy that business are going this way.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Interesting, but growing fungi requires large amounts of water,
| yet this resource has been omitted this input from their "impact"
| diagram. At scale, the "manufacturing" process for this product
| likely will require an insane amount of fresh, clean water. With
| potable water already a constrained resource in many areas, how
| big can a single factory be scaled before running afoul of their
| local community?
| jmhobbs wrote:
| Does it if you're not fruiting them though? I make 5lb hardwood
| sawdust bags with about a quart, quart and a half of water, and
| that's all that is needed for the mycelium to colonize the
| whole thing. I suppose at scale a liter for a 12"x6"x6" block
| is perhaps a bit much lot.
| drewm1980 wrote:
| Hobby gourmet mushroom grower here. For gourmet mushrooms you
| use about 60 percent water. For this purpose it is probably
| lower. Many products require many times their weight in water;
| this is not that bad. Mushrooms care more about competing
| bacteria and fungi than impurities... I imagine pasteurized
| groundwater or rainwater would be good enough for this. Drying
| and killing the mycelium could be energy intensive depending on
| the local climate. Maybe they recapture most of the water
| during the bake... It would already be sterile.
| ents wrote:
| Doesn't this already exist from Ecovative?
| https://www.ecovative.com/pages/packaging
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