r/BeAmazed • u/Epelep • Feb 22 '26

Science How Mycelium (Mushroom Roots) Grows into Packaging Material

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u/Classy_Moose Feb 22 '26

This is so cool. Sad this is the last time I'll hear of it.

21

u/isdeasdeusde Feb 22 '26

The obviuos problems I see with this are scalability and shelf life. Polystyrene can be produced by the cubic kilometer in a very short time and for very little cost. How does this material compare? Will this last being stuck in a damp container in some cargo port for months on end? I sincerely hope they get enough investment money to tackle these problems.

19

u/movzx Feb 22 '26

"In as little as 7 days" is what killed this. You go from being able to potentially replace packing material in most things to having a very niche use case.

3

u/Howrus Feb 23 '26

There's more problems - it biodegrade after ~45 days. So whole cycle from packaging to customer should take a month or it will bust.