Mushrooms
Mushrooms have amazing potential. See also Sustainability, also Solid Waste and Chemicals
News/Articles
| Fungi can eat pollution right out of the soil | |
| 4/2 | Fungi are freaking amazing: Give them enough time and they will eat anything, even the toxins spread over polluted sites around the world. Mohamed Hijri, a professor at the University of Montreal, figured — why wait for nature to take its time neutralizing the damage we’ve done to the planet? Why not urge it along? And so he started identifying the fungi and microorganisms that do the best job at cleaning up toxins.
Fast Company explains: Working with a Montreal oil company responsible for several toxic sites, Hijri has collected a biological clean-up team that can turn what’s basically a moonscape into something habitable (at least by some species) over the course of just a few years. First, willow trees are planted in dense stands to soak up the heavy metal contamination and store it in the plant’s cells. Then, each season, the trees’ stems and leaves are burned, creating an ash residue full of heavy metals. Finally, specially selected (but naturally occurring) fungi and bacteria are released to metabolize the petrochemical waste. Even a highly contaminated soil, says Hijri, can be cleaned within a few seasons. And then we can make cars out of them! Truly, it is the circle of life. [Fungi can eat pollution right out of the soil Links |
A group of Yale students, poking around in the jungles of Ecuador, has unearthed a type of fungus that digests otherwise-unkillable plastics. 2/12
Video
Are mushrooms the new plastic? (TEDtalk video)
6 ways mushrooms can save the world TEDtalk. Paul Stamets has also designed the LifeBox for planting trees. His video channel
Insulation and packaging — both made from mushrooms. Bayer came up with the idea as a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic in New York and developed it with classmate Gavin McIntyre. Now the two have a company called Ecovative Design (audio and video).
Video discussion, including how to, with Mushroom Mtn SC. Especially interesting is bio-remediation, aka Mycoremediation (see also Appropedia) even breaking down oil, also industrial waste, (and diesel contaminated soil). A collection of technical documents Cambridge 2001.
Two UCB students give up finance and become social entrepreneurs, using coffee waste to grow organic mushrooms (video).
Audio
Paul Stamets interview 2/12.
For the past 30 years, botanist Nicholas Money has studied the microorganisms that most people associate with bad smells, itchy toes, damp basements and rotten food. A renowned fungal researcher at Miami University in Ohio, new book excerpt.
Books
Using plants to clean up chemicals (phytoremediation). See also Mycoremediation: Fungal Bioremediation Harbhajan Singh.
Reports/Studies
UN Manual 65 page pdf, quite thorough.
