Discover reports that a company now sells a packing material that is cheap, biodegradable, environmentally friendly, and grows in the dark. Namely mushrooms.
Technically, it's reshaped mushroom roots. The caps are too valuable as food, but the roots used to be composted or thrown away. They're very squishy, and after reshaping, can have any arbitrary shape, the way Styrofoam does.
Consumers receiving packages packed in mushroom-root can compost the packing material after they unload their goods. Or they can throw it away, and it'll rot in a landfill instead. In either case, the resources that went into it will return to the environment, while Styrofoam just sits around for all eternity.
It's the ultimate in recycling -- one need not actually participate to pull it off. And the best benefit is that the company is fairly sure they can do it at lower cost than Styrofoam. Lower costs means everyone wins.
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