mushrooms used in the United States to recycle building waste

Near Chicago in the United States, the company Mycocycle uses mushrooms to recycle construction materials. A beneficial industrial activity in a country where construction continues to grow and waste accumulates.

The mushroom is a natural recycler. It attacks dead leaves and wood. An American company, Mycocyle, has developed a process by which the fungus will “eat” building waste, which often contains plastic and other petroleum-derived products. And it will transform them into organic material.

The decomposition process lasts about two weeks during which the mycelium, the vegetative apparatus of the mushroom, “consumes” the carbon molecules. Mycelium, explains the Mycocycle website, is very efficient. The process developed will reduce the toxicity of a material by an average of 98% while transforming it, via phenomena called biosorption, bioconversion and biodegradation. The result is a new material, fire-resistant, water-resistant, durable, lightweight, which can be used to insulate a building or make acoustic panels, according to the start-up.

Landfills already at 85% of their capacity

At the origin of the adventure, Joanne Rodriguez, a woman who worked for 30 years in the construction sector, has experience and knowledge of the sector. She launched Mycocycle in 2018, in Bolingbrook in the greater suburbs of Chicago. And the website of his start-up uses Lavoisier’s famous formula, “nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”saying “the answer is there, right under our feet. In nature, nothing is lost”. It is an excellent response to the problems of waste produced by the building. These reach 660 million tonnes in the United States alone, knowing that the construction sector will continue to grow and that landfills are already at 85% of their capacity.

Joanne Rodriguez is well aware that other companies make products from mycelium but, she insists, they do not make them from products that the mycelium itself has recycled. She also doesn’t want to use genetically modified mushrooms.

Another target in sight: tire recycling

The entrepreneur does not intend to stop in the construction sector. She explained to the Techcrunch site that she is targeting a promising market: tires. The fungus can also attack paper, nylon and therefore rubber. In the United States, 280 million tires are discarded each year, and only 30 million are reused. However, recycling techniques have been the same for 40 years, notes Joanne Rodriguez.

Mycocycle is still working on the optimal way to work rubber and investors sense the potential of the project. The mycelium market could flirt with $4 billion within two years. In any case, the company has just raised $3.5 million to finance its tests and research.