these “forever chemicals” never disappear, never go away, and are toxic to personal and planetary health. in 2022 alone, 72 million tonnes of synthetic materials were produced and put into clothing, according to textile exchange’s preferred fiber and materials market report. most people have no idea they are walking around in glorified plastic bags. it is not a matter of if we can change, but if we will and the answer appears to be under our feet. welcome to plastic rehab, we’ve been waiting for you. 

can fungi replace leather?

mycelium, the root structure of fungi and what mycologist paul stamets calls “the earth’s natural internet,” is just starting to be harnessed to create climate and environmental solutions to many problems. mycelium weave magnificent webs, interlinking nature, allowing different life forms to communicate. now they are branching out to the fashion industry to open our eyes, co-creating with people to show that another regenerative materials future is possible. 

currently leather is predominantly made from animal skins or synthetic materials, with a few other plant-based concoctions entering the arena. cow leather is a byproduct of the animal agriculture industry, so fashion is completely dependent on the production of beef for hides to make leather. vegan, bio, and faux leather are just some of the aliases plastic goes by these days to hook new victims.

artisans used to sustainably use hides to make leather through vegetable tanning. it was a tedious process as tanning could take weeks. so what had been a specialized craft, has now been overrun by chromium tanning which is much faster and cheaper. but it suffuses the world with chromium sulfate. this allows the fashion industry to make cookie cutter products as speed and cost reductions are prioritized, leaving people and the planet to pay the true cost. this fuels a system driven around cheap fast goods, ignoring the natural systems we operate within that replenish resources intuitively but cannot keep up with over extraction.

staging a grassroots revolution, mycelium is here to dethrone the plastic and animal leather kings. mycelium can do something plastics cannot, biodegrade seamlessly back into the ground as food, not poison.  

unraveling and upending the current system, the use of mycelium could also reduce consumption of land and water. designers can direct their creativity to choosing love, choosing life, and choosing wisely. treating the fungi kingdom as our new partners, we don’t have to limit designs to just a replacement trying to replicate the old regime. mycelium materials don’t have to conform to old shapes because they can take on so much more, it just needs to be imagined.

as companies like mycoworks are developing faux-leather handbags made out of mycelia, mushrooms are having their “she’s all that” makeover moment and being valued for what’s on the inside even while they make their way down the catwalk. the fashion industry is having a spiritual awakening from a shroom trip and is being offered a second chance by the fantastic fungi giving them a circular means of existence. 

adapting to any circumstance, from paris haute couture, hats as soft as butter, avant-garde stools, and even a lamp that begs the question, how many people does it take to change a light bulb housed in a cylinder of mycelium? the possibilities are endless. 

cultivating a symbiotic future

these mycelium-based creations are all fascinating, but since the climate and environmental crisis keeps me up at night, what gets me up in the morning are the innovations that could scale and replace synthetics. from packaging to leather, mycelium is malleable, moldable, and abundant. the diversity of possibility in what has been and could be made from fungi exemplifies the expansiveness of the human imagination. 

merlin sheldrake, ph.d., biologist and author of entangled life, encouraged people to “think about these relationships as symbiotic relationships not as fungal technologies.” fungi are resilient, enigmatic, and unflappable. human created technology is incredible, but we must not forget that the true power is the natural resource itself and that humans are not in complete control over it. 

sheldrake further reflects on the history of life on the planet and expresses that often unlikely partnerships form because, “they came together in times of crisis because together they could do something that neither could do apart.” together they just might be able to transform the fashion industry into a regenerative and circular system to create a more ethical world. once you choose possibility, life opens up to you.

courtesy of extensive, amateur google searches, the mushroom is presumably coprinopsis atramantaria, commonly known as an ink cap mushroom –– or not, i am truly no expert. regardless, being quarantined in the suburbs of burlington has provided a window into the vast network of neighbors i had never thought to look for, especially not in my own home. stemming from this same sense of wonder, with significantly more precision and expertise, is the field of mycology: the study of fungi. 

in an attempt to further understand my fungal neighbors i turned to the experts in mycology for answers. why were they growing inside my studio? could mushrooms adapt to human-influenced conditions? what would their adaptability do to benefit the broader environment in the age of climate change? as it turns out, another group of neighbors, humans this time, released a paper in recent years through the gund institute for environment at the university of vermont in an attempt to tackle some of these questions.

perhaps it would be helpful to briefly introduce the terminology used in the following exploration. the mycellium is a web of thread-like hyphae (vegetative filaments) that stem from each individual mushroom and connect them to each other beneath the earth. researchers alison bennett and aimee classen hypothesized about the impact of climate change on fungi characterized by these mycelium. their study of experimental warming and precipitation variability examined the impact these stressors have on fungi. 

amidst a staring contest with my new fungal housemate, i reflected upon the weather patterns in our area for the past couple weeks. it seems as though the rain on monday, warmth on tuesday and ongoing spells of variable weather might have had some sort of impact on the growth of mushrooms in the area. as it turns out, these ink cap mushrooms are common in yards and other grassy areas. with the knowledge that it is not uncommon to have these fungi sprout up near homes, there remains a question of why these areas and what does weather have to do with it?

bennett and classen discuss these growth patterns, or hyphal exploration types, and the diversity of ability they provide to fungi. much of where mushrooms end up growing depends on their exploration and deposition of spores. 

i imagine the miniscule hyphae pushing themselves and the rest of their body in between the sheetrock and floorboards, searching for moist, warm air. 

by gathering and sifting through literature to form connections between climate change, fungi and plant growth, the scientists found that fungi seem to act in a new role: a buffer. 

through the underground mycelial network, plants and some fungi exist symbiotically, and these fungi are called mycorrhizal fungi. this relationship is characterized by a constant exchange of water and nutrients from the fungi to the plant and photosynthetic sugars from the plant to the fungi. bennett and classen conclude that these fungi could perhaps, “…buffer plant hosts against extinction risk, they can facilitate or retard the dispersal success of plants moving away from poor environments, and, by buffering host plants, they can enable host plant adaptation to new climates.” fungi, it seems, are perhaps the key to protecting the green of earth’s future. 

using their hyphae, mycorrhizal fungi are able to increase surface area, promoting increased water absorption. this provides a sort of reservoir for their plant partners to draw from in cases of low water availability in soil. as the anthropocene continues, precipitation patterns are becoming increasingly irregular and unpredictable. by having this safety net of a mycelial network backing them up, bennet and classen hope that the future impacts of climate change will be at least partially mitigated by the ability for these mycorrhizal fungi to adapt to changing conditions.

a sense of comfort is offered through this exploration of the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants in the age of climate change. it is reassuring to know that the ink caps’ connections through the mycelial network of millions of fungi are taking care of the plant-life, at least until humans hopefully figure out how to show them as much respect. 

the next step in this journey is to make pottery glazes from these ink cap mushrooms, but that will be an experiment for another day.

founded by a pair of engineers, the company is working to make not only a replacement for styrofoam “peanuts” but a variety of other materials from home insulation to kitchen counters. the company has found some high-profile customers, making parts for ford and packaging for dell computers.

josh also takes us into the woods to see why mushrooms could be nature’s perfect packing, and to ecovative’s labs to see how a few cottonseed husks and some mushroom cells can grow into something useful and beneficial for the environment.

we were planning to use forms for the house walls supplied by therma steel, agriboard or insulated concrete forms (icf) available from several sources. we would like to use your material instead of styrofoam blocks used by icf manufacturers. can you supply us with these forms? we will be building late next spring or early next summer but would be willing to wait if it would take you longer to supply the blocks.

ecovative insulation helps you reduce the amount of energy used to build your home, and is a safer material for your well-insulated building. there are many great loose fill or batt insulations that are eco-friendly, but almost all rigid board insulation is made from petrochemicals, resulting in significant co2 emissions during the manufacturing process. proper construction with rigid board insulation provides a tighter envelope with fewer thermal bridges resulting in a more energy efficient building.

mushroom insulation is safe to touch and can be installed without any special safety gear. additionally there are no spores or allergy concerns associated with the use of this material, and it achieves a class 1 fire rating without needing toxic fire retardants.