PROTOTYPE FUNGI FARM TURNS PLASTICS INTO FOOD

Creating Edible Products from Plastic-Fed Fungi

Austrian design group Livin Studio has built a system, nicknamed the Fungi Mutarium that turns edible fungal biomass, principally mycelium, into an unusual food product. The added wow factor of this idea is that the fungi used,Schizophyllum Commune and Pleurotus Ostreatus, are fed on sterilized plastic waste and transform it into a nutritional biomass humans can feed on. The fungi is grown on purposefully designed agar shapes that its creators call FU. The agar provides a starch and sugar base for the fungi. The FUs are first loaded with plastics, then the fungi is introduced, where it digests the plastic and takes over the space. Novel ideas such as this could see us consuming some of our unwanted plastic waste that is currently clogging landfill sites all around the world, not to mention our seas and oceans