EcoCradle To Revolutionise Polystyrene Industry

An environmentally friendly, biodegradable polystyrene made from farm waste and mushrooms has been developed that could revolutionise the packaging industry.

Called EcoCradle, the packaging is grown rather than manufactured meaning that virtually no greenhouse gasses are emitted in production and ten times less energy is consumed than that of normal polystyrene.

EcoCradle

EcoCradle is the brainchild of American businessmen Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, founders of Ecovative Design in New York.

"We have developed a platform that we think is perfect for replacing the polystyrene that is used in packaging, because... it is biodegradable and it's created using almost no energy, almost no CO2 emissions," said Ecovative CEO Eben Bayer.

He added: "For each unit of EcoCradle we produce, compared to the same unit or volume of polystyrene, we use ten times less energy and emit eight times less CO2 over the life of the product from production, use and to disposal.

"Our long-term vision is actually to replace all plastic and foams and mitigate their environmental consequences... and this natural platform we have discovered or invented will allow us to do that.”

EcoCradle is made up of buckwheat and cottonseed hulls and rice husk, all waste products from agriculture. 

Mycelium, a filamentous fungi, is the key ingredient as it releases enzymes as it grows which degrade the farm waste.

The product is then left in the dark at room temperature for a week, resulting in an ultra-light, malleable material which can resist temperatures of 800 degrees Celsius. 

It can also be used as an insulator meaning it could be used in house building, and in addition it becomes a natural fertilizer for plants as it biodegrades.

Polystyrene Industry

The polystyrene industry is dominated in the United States by a Dow Chemical subsidiary and is worth 20 billion dollars a year.

Because normal polystyrene is a plastic it doesn’t biodegrade whilst it also needs to be manufactured, thus emitting greenhouse gasses in the production process.

Bayer claims that there is so much polystyrene in the US packaging industry that it makes up 30 percent of all landfill waste there.

Ecovative Design currently has one factory in the state of New York but is looking to expand operations into the Midwest and then Europe and Asia in the next three years.

Bayer says production costs for EcoCradle are similar to those of polystyrene and that factories require "a fairly low capital investment, in the order of millions of dollars.

"It's low-tech biotechnology... it's almost closer to cooking or farming vegetables than it is to genetic manipulation,” he said.