Plastic Fantastic… Mushroom Roots and Engineered Bacteria!
I recently had a back-and-forth with a great fellow tumblr - “FYS” - about plant-based plastics. In short, FYS had said that farmland should never be used for things other than farming. I asked what options we have for plastics - since growing bioplastics is much less harmful than our petroleum-based plastics. FYS’ answer: Fungus.
He linked to an amazing TED talk and an article about the same idea. (TED talk here and article here.) In short, the article spoke about some amazing ways in which mushroom “roots” are being engineered to grow into useful objects and shapes that can supplant the use of many conventional plastics. (E.g. In place of plastic used to hold items as they’re being shipped.) These “mushroom-plastics” are literally grown in 5 days from normal agricultural waste (so they can be produced anywhere in the world). And perhaps most importantly, when you throw away “mushroom-plastic” it doesn’t sit in landfills for thousands of years, literally poisoning the planet; in fact, you can throw it away in your own backyard - and it will improve the soil in your yard!
Awesome.
However, it seems to me that “mushroom-plastics” do exhibit a limited range of capabilities (and are better for replacing such terrible chemicals such as styrofoam [aka polystyrene]). Perhaps “mushroom-plastics” will be advanced and developed to display an even wider range of properties, but until then - we still need plastic. So what now?
This is where I’d normally be in favor of growing plastic - but perhaps, like FYS said, it’s still unnecessary and ill-advised. There’s a great article out today about a researcher 
that’s used genetic engineering and evolutionary prodding to create bacteria which are better able to convert agricultural waste into conventional, but environmentally friendly, plastics (and more). (Btw, article here.) I was actually a bit surprised that this was only done now since this precise kind of evolution had been done for other research reasons quite a few years ago, but finally someone has gotten around to adapting it for environmental purposes. As the article describes, this process will allow for 20% more of biowaste to be utilized for creating bioplastics. So, instead of using farmland for plastics, we can still use them for food and merely use the waste for growing plastics.
Fantastic.
However, FYS and myself did wholeheartedly and immediately agree about one important step which can be made right now by everyone: Recycle. Seriously, it’s a pretty simple way to make a big difference without having to bioengineer bacteria or train mushroom roots to grow into corner-blocks - though I am so psyched to see those those awesome developments becoming more mainstream! w00t!
