Carbon-negative building material made from waste and fungi

Why This Project?

The most popular insulation material on the market is polystyrene which is made out of plastic, it is non-renewable and its manufacturing process has high energy consumption. As traditional plastic insulation is transitioning to be a thing of the past, the real problem is that the sustainable products currently on the market are not as affordable and performative as their oil-based counterparts. Our solution is to create highly performative building materials made from waste with a carbon-negative manufacturing process. Our fabrication technique involves the use of mycology to inoculate and propagate mycelium on cellulosic waste from our partner, The Navigator Company, a paper giant producing 1.6M tonnes of waste each year. Mycelium is the "root" of mushrooms and functions as a natural adhesive as it is used to bind the waste. The mushroom strains used will bind the waste material and grow fully in the span of four weeks in the right environmental conditions, involve minimum use of water and cure at very low temperatures. Mykor insulation sequesters 22kg of CO² per m³ and its manufacturing process produces 60% less carbon than EPS foam. We have estimated that we will be able to repurpose 5k tonnes of waste on average per year.