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Plastic turns into edible mushrooms

13.03.2016

Austrian inventors Katharina Unger and Kaleigh Rogers are developing the Fungi Mutarium, a device that turns plastic waste into edible mushrooms. The project is carried out in close collaboration with microbiologists who test which types of fungi can be used in this technology and assess the safety of the final product. The ScienceAlert portal tells about it.

In 2012, scientists from Yale University (USA) discovered the fungus Pestalotiopsis microspora in the Amazon forests, which, as it turned out, is able to decompose polyurethane, the main ingredient that makes up plastic. Moreover, researchers have proven that it can exist in an oxygen-free environment, eating exclusively plastic.

As it turned out later, there are quite a lot of mushrooms capable of processing plastic. Katarina Unger, together with Julia Kaisinger, a biologist from the University of Utrecht (Netherlands), identified two of the most convenient from a practical point of view - oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) and common slitwort (Schizophyllum commune). In the UK and the US, they are considered inedible, but are popular in parts of Mexico and India.

The device has a series of small white cups that are made from agar (seaweed extract), starch and sugar. They place thin slices of plastic waste that have been previously sterilized with ultraviolet light. Mushrooms gradually germinate into the cups, and as they grow, the plastic waste is processed and the nutrients from the walls of the cups are absorbed.

As the developers say, after a few months, the plastic completely decomposes and only fluffy edible white mycelium remains on the walls of the agar dishes. Scientists believe that these mushrooms are not at all interested in the accumulation of toxic elements in their cells, and theoretically they can be safe for consumption.

Portable home recycling farms are still quite a long way off, and a whole range of qualified scientific research is required. However, the idea itself looks quite tempting, especially considering that, according to new estimates, by 2050, humanity will produce three times more plastic than in 2014, and the total mass of plastic waste over the next 35 years will exceed the weight of fish in the world's oceans. .

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