[CC] Shrooms Are the Answer to Everything

So this is sort of a continuation of my last post because I'm gonna talk about how rad nature is and why it's worth caring about.  I saw you roll your eyes... stop that.  This is cool, I swear.
Alright, don't take the title TOO literally. By "everything" I mean things like inefficient energy usage, abuse of fossil fuels, crazy amounts of CO2 emissions, and landfills full of EVIL PLASTICS.  And by "shrooms" I do actually mean mushrooms.  More specifically, mycelium. Let me tell about this cool invention that could change the entire freaking planet forever.
As you might know, Styrofoam sucks.  It doesn't break down naturally, it's ugly, it's expensive to recycle (less than 2% of it is recycled in the first place), and it's painfully cheap to make/buy (which is bad because it's accessible and easy to use... ohhh so easy).  Plastics currently make up 25% of our landfills' volume, most of it being expanded polystyrene (the non-nickname for Styrofoam, abbreviated as EPS).  That's a heck of a lot of plastic.  Here's a not-so-fun fact: to make one cubic meter of EPS, 462 kilograms of CO2 are emitted into our already weakened atmosphere.  Tell me why in the world we continue to do this to ourselves.  Money, convenience, performance, and ignorance.  That's why.
Wait, what's that? A bird? A plane? Superman? Heck no, it's a mushroom! Whaaaaat? Hold on to your hats, folks.  Your preconceived notions are about to be crushed by a fungus.

So these two cool guys named Eben and Gavin thought of this super cool idea in one of their college classes that would help stop the need for EPS in the world.  Eben's experience growing up on a farm and studying natural polymers (cool hobby, huh?) led him to discover multiple uses for the natural bonding abilities of mushrooms.  This in turn led to the creation of a material that involved mixing farm waste (like oat husks and cotton hulls) with a secret mushroom mixture and dumping it into a plastic mold, where the concoction sits for a few days and creates a material that resembles Styrofoam in performance.  This happens when the fungi grows around the natural farm waste, creating a strong piece of mushroom board with a waxy white coating.  There are so many cool things about this stuff that I am forced to put them into bullet points:

• This stuff can be used to insulate houses (which was the original idea for the company) but has been used mainly as a replacement for EPS as a packaging technique
• It holds up against salty sea water, tropical weather, and harsh weather conditions
• It's completely fireproof (a main reason why it would be good for home insulation)
• It's EDIBLE (but not very tasty)
• Making it takes one tenth of the energy it takes to make an equivalent amount of EPS
• If composted, the mushroom material can return to the soil completely in approximately one month.  Not 3 million years.  One month.
• It is produced in the dark, which means the facility uses very little electricity 
• The company purchases farm waste from farmers (who usually pay good money to get rid of said waste), supporting farmers around the country 
• The company plans to open many facilities so the driving time (and gas usage) is minimized in transporting the product
• Mushroom packaging is predicted to be cheaper than EPS as companies begin to increase incremental volumes of the materials they purchase from the company
• Cool companies like Dell, Puma, Steelcase, and Crate&Barrel have already invested in mushroom packaging and give approval of the material's performance
  

When I presented this packaging idea to the company I intern for, they gave me a lot of criticism that I have been able to knock down as I contacted the company that makes the mushroom stuff:

• A lot of people are allergic to mushrooms.  Won't that be a problem? NOPE! The packaging does not use mushroom spores, which are the part of the mushroom that people are allergic to.  In short, it's hypoallergenic!
• Mushrooms are plants, so the packaging won't be able to pass through customs into other countries, right? NOPE! Again, no spores or seeds used, and so far the only minor customs issues have been with some African countries.
• But it's, like, 3 times as much as EPS.  That's a problem, right? NOPE! It's only that expensive when it's bought in smaller incremental volumes.  The more you buy and the more advancements the company makes in improving the material, the cheaper it will be!
• But if we're thinking long-term, won't this create a shortage of mushrooms on the planet? NOPE! (This is super cool, pay attention.)  The company goes out into nature and extracts a TINY bit of mycelium (kinda like the muscle of mushrooms) from a mushroom.  Then they take it to their huge lab and clone the mycelium tissue over and over and over again until they can create thousands of pieces of packaging just from that bit of natural mushroom tissue that was extracted from nature.  

No harm done to nature.  The energy is created within the natural packaging itself.  It's biocompatible and takes a month to break down completely.  I don't understand why this is debatable.  Nature is great and it's OFFERING us the answers to our own problems.  Let's take advantage of these amazing opportunities, for goodness sake.   

(Side note: My phone's homescreen is a picture of the cofounders of this company.  I'm utterly obsessed with this stuff.)

[CM] Just Hug Trees With Me for a Quick Sec

Hi, I'm Hannah, and I was not a tree-hugger until approximately two months ago.  I mean, most self-proclaimed tree-huggers would probably spit on my shoes if they heard me identify myself as one of their own, but I have recently discovered my own value for the environment that I never really had before.  I know this is a cliche topic but please just bear with me for a second, I totally understand your fidgeting.  
So I have this internship type thing at Haworth (shoutout to West Michigan, office furniture capital of the world) twice a week and the company keeps us busy by giving us challenges to tackle that the company itself hasn't been able to solve.  This semester, our challenge was to find a way to stop Haworth's use of expanded polystyrene (better known as styrofoam) in the company's packaging techniques.  I totally rolled my eyes when I first read the prompt for our semester quest, but I've grown to value the environment in a way I've never valued it before.  
My views on the environment were not gleaned from the research I did, but rather from the criticism I received from representatives at Haworth.  I found a great solution to the issue and thought all would be hunky-dory when I presented it to them, but I heard a lot of "too expensive" and "not reliable" (the company making the biodegradable packaging is fairly new).  While I completely understand the concern for expenses and risk factors when getting involved with a start-up company, I do not understand why a few cents difference in cost and a lack of willingness to make small investments in a company with immense potential would trump concern for the environment, especially when Haworth is proud of its "green" and "earth-friendly" reputation.  I suddenly started asking MYSELF the big questions: why would you not make a relatively minor change in the way you go about packaging when tons and tons of non-biodegradable, useless, ugly, pellet-y styrofoam is being dumped into landfills and forgotten until future generations have to figure out what the heck to do with it? Here's the nasty reality: Styrofoam was invented by Dow (frick you, Dow) in 1941 and currently makes up 25% of the mass of our landfills.  Not the area, the ///MASS///. Think about how light a piece of styrofoam is. Doesn't that just make you want to set the human race on fire?
This qualifies as a "Convince Me" post because I'm trying to convince you that the environment is worth caring about.  Here's where I start to sound like the narrator of a Nike advertisement.  YOU are one small part of a very large world population.  Sorry if that makes you feel insignificant.  But in all honesty, you really can't do a WHOLE lot to save the planet if you recycle one piece of paper every once and a while.  The real individual change comes into play when you convince others to care about the environment, too.  Take me, for example.  I'm doing my VERY best to convince a very powerful company to stop using styrofoam in their packaging.  Imagine how many tons of styrofoam can be kept out of landfills if I make a strong case on behalf of our planet.  Not to brag, but that's pretty sweet! So hop to it, bro.  Get creative and figure out how to keep the nasty crappy expanded polystyrene out of landfills and into nonexistence.  The thing that made me even bother to care was the hate I got from corporate leaders.  But I endured through these trials thanks to these wise words of my idol, Drake:
"F*** you p***y a** hater you should do what you do, you ain't heard of me then you should go get a Blue's Clue [about how much you're hurting the environment]."

Do you care about the Earth a little bit more? Just a little? Ok cool.