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Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

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Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#101

Post by HumanVerbasizer »

elil17 wrote: post #41
oniony wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the images, it looks less premium to me than the smoother mouled paper inserts I've seen on electronic products. You could be right on with the foam aspect though.

Well there are multiple types of molded paper inserts. Egg carton-type material on the cheap end, and that super smooth stuff that Apple uses on the other (these generally have additives in them - they aren't just paper). In terms of "premium"ness this sits in the middle.

Apple was using a cellulose foam mixed with a starch based biodegradable binder, one that was very slightly different from Paperfoam to save them money on licensing fees.

Now they just use 99% compressed cellulose with a few antistatic additives.

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#102

Post by ksymph »

SebaSeba wrote: post #72
jcims wrote: post #34

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago. Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it. Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selec…

A thing I've been wondering, I might be completely lost in thinking about this, but do you know: If you grow mushrooms at home is there a risk that it spreads as kind of fungi to the building, furniture etc.?

Nope. Edible mushrooms generally need similar conditions as mold/mildew/rot to grow, i.e. moisture, low light, and the right material -- though they tend to be pickier, and are less suited to human-adjacent conditions. So if you find mushrooms growing where they shouldn't, there's a much deeper moisture and mold issue.

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#103

Post by steelbrain »

foobiekr wrote: post #78
SebaSeba wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A thing I've been wondering, I might be completely lost in thinking about this, but do you know: If you grow mushrooms at home is there a risk that it spreads as kind of fungi to the building, furniture etc.?

Mushrooms are everywhere. There used to be a subreddit of "weird mushrooms" like growing out of people's couches or in the bathroom, etc. In all cases, this is a sign of rot due to water intrusion. You can grow mushrooms at home, it is fun. The only risk is that the mushrooms with high spore production are not great to have in a closed residence, especially oyster mushrooms which produce very high spore loads. There…

For the curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/mushroomID/

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#104

Post by KarlKode »

SebaSeba wrote: post #72
jcims wrote: post #34

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago. Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it. Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selec…

A thing I've been wondering, I might be completely lost in thinking about this, but do you know: If you grow mushrooms at home is there a risk that it spreads as kind of fungi to the building, furniture etc.?

Normally the risk of airborne spores taking over your growing material is much more likely than your (most of the time very selected and in no way adapted to the "normal" surroundings you try to grow them in) taking over your home. Keep in mind that almost all fungi like similar conditions and there are already loads of spores of fungi that are more adapted to your living conditions in the air.

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#105

Post by Reason077 »

kepano wrote: post #43

There are a few companies in this space, notably Ecovative, who have been trying to make mycelium-based packaging for almost two decades. The problem is that it takes around 7 days for each piece of packaging to "grow", and the finished part is heavy and not compressible so it adds significant cost in manufacturing, storage and transit. And these costs don't get any better with scale. For those reasons, mycelium pack…

Biodegradable foam packaging, as well has food containers, disposable cutlery, etc, has also been made from corn starch for decades.

I’m curious what the advantage of mycelium packaging is over these existing materials. Presumably, it’s not cheaper to produce? Is it mainly that the mycelium degrades faster and can be recycled more easily in home composting, etc? Or is this about creating “hard” plastic-like packaging that resists crushing, water, etc?

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#106

Post by jcims »

SebaSeba wrote: post #72
jcims wrote: post #34

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago. Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it. Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selec…

A thing I've been wondering, I might be completely lost in thinking about this, but do you know: If you grow mushrooms at home is there a risk that it spreads as kind of fungi to the building, furniture etc.?

I agree with the replies so far in that there isn't a major risk of the mushrooms spreading.

That said, it's not completely risk free and I think it's important for folks who decide to get into the hobby at least take a moment to think about it. If you have someone in the household that has respiratory issues, I think it would be worthwhile ensuring that you have good containment to prevent spores from circulating the home (or do it elsewhere). This is particularly true if you decide to scale up (which is natural once you have some success, it truly is fun).

Also the growing environment is subject to infection from whatever environmental molds/fungus/etc are around, so reasonable precautions should be taken when handling/disposing. Once you get your procedures down this is less of an issue but still something to keep in mind.

Personally I didn't do anything but very basic precautions and never had an issue.

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#107

Post by jcims »

convolvatron wrote: post #75
jcims wrote: post #34

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago. Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it. Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selec…

what do you use as a low-cost substrate? I think this would be something I'd be into, but the idea of buying 5lb bags to be delivered by UPS really kind of takes the magic out of it.

Certain species do better in different substrates, but for the ones I've grown coco coir (also suggested by holly01) works great. There are some additional bits you can add to improve results but it starts there. You can hydrate it with hot water in a 5 gallon bucket. There's lots of tutorials on YouTube.

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#108

Post by jcims »

jcims wrote: post #34

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago. Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it. Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selec…

Couple of pics of lions mane and pink oyster that I had sitting around - https://imgur.com/a/ubI3eWt

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#109

Post by anthk »

Between Mycellium and intelligent networks communicating nodes and 'learning' (and solving mazes' and brain's microtubules with fractal frequencies, biology looks like advanced computing literally very ahead for its time compared to what we the humans were trying to achieve barey half a century ago.

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#110

Post by markvdb »

convolvatron wrote: post #75
jcims wrote: post #34

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago. Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it. Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selec…

what do you use as a low-cost substrate? I think this would be something I'd be into, but the idea of buying 5lb bags to be delivered by UPS really kind of takes the magic out of it.

Depends on the species. For something easy to grow like oyster mushrooms, straw. Do decontaminate the straw. Cooking water or hydraulic lime water should work for that.
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