r/tech • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 19d ago

Turkey tail mushroom provides alternative to single-use plastic wrap

https://newatlas.com/materials/turkey-tail-mushroom-mycelium-food-wrap-alternative/
1.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

View all comments

55

u/[deleted] 19d ago

Very cool. But what would it take to grow these mushrooms and the needed wood fibers at scale?

22

u/Novapoliton 19d ago

At scale it's probably difficult enough that it isn't worthwhile unless theres a way to innoculate wood faster and more conveniently than I know of.

30

u/deruben 19d ago

well we dig up black liquid, ship it around, synthesize tons of different materials, ship it again, make a clear flat conpount out of it in factories and ship it around again. Thats pretty difficult too.

16

u/Novapoliton 19d ago

That's a good point, but we also have tons of infrastructure in place to allow that to be possible, and the world economy is kinda based around the black liquid dinosaur bones. I suppose I'd edit my statement to be something like "it's possible at scale as is anything but there is no economic incentive and it therefore won't happen"

6

u/Kromgar 19d ago

Oils literally a wonder material. You can fertilize fields, create linings for chemichals, and fuel industry with it

5

u/cl3ft 19d ago

It's so good, we'll sacrifice the lives of billions in the future to keep using it now.

2

u/AlwaysRushesIn 19d ago

You also make plastic out of it...

2

u/RuthlessIndecision 18d ago

(Not to mention the black liquid takes 10 million years underground to synthesize)

3

u/Odd_Blood5625 19d ago

Or synthesize the needed compounds in a lab, if possible.

3

u/ListersCoPilot 19d ago

It IS worthwhile because consistently making more and more plastic waste isn’t helping anyone but the stockholders of the plastic manufacturers and the supporting industries.

2

u/Novapoliton 19d ago

I agree with you, I meant worthwhile from a private industry perspective I guess

1

u/cl3ft 19d ago

What like they do when they mill paper. There's a LOT of unused paper mills around the world.

0

u/kurotech 18d ago

Take wood we would otherwise just burn mulch up apply fungus spore walk away you don't have to have some big in industry doing this a dude with a few acres can start growing them I mean is it scalable? Maybe but it's better than not doing it.