Here are 10 ways mushrooms may help save the planet — from reducing air pollution and microplastics to creating sustainable building materials and food products.
1. Neutralizing Carbon Pollution
Certain species of mycorrhizal fungi, dubbed "ectomycorrhizal fungi," help trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere faster. They also retain carbon for much longe
2. Restoring Soil Quality
Mycoremediation is a form of bioremediation that utilizes fungi to clean up polluted soil and restore its nutrient content. Certain mushrooms, known as “decomposers,” break down organic and petroleum-based matter and convert it into readily available nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and calcium.
3. Removing Microplastics
Several species in the Pestalotiopsis genus can eat microplastics and convert them back to organic molecules.
4. Reducing Eutrophication
Eutrophication is the process where nutrient runoff from the land collects in water systems, causing explosive growth in microorganisms that suck up all the oxygen in the water. Mycofiltration is a process that uses certain species of fungi to filter water and consum excess nutrients that leads to eutrophication.
5. Making Biodegradable Plastics
Development is still in the early stages, but some experts believe mushrooms could be the answer to eliminating the plastic circulating in our environment by offering us an alternative to oil-based polymers.
6. Reducing the Environmental Impact of Livestock Farming
Every 1 kg of beef sold at the supermarket requires 25 kg of crop and 15,000 liters of water. Mushrooms may be part of the answer to this problem.
7. Sustainable Food Source
Mushrooms may offer a more sustainable replacement to supplement our reliance on meat.
8. A Sustainable Building Material
Amazingly, bricks can be grown from mycelium. These “biobricks” are made by colonizing molds filled with agricultural waste with mushroom mycelium.
9. Saving the Bees
Bees and other pollinating flying insects are in decline. This is mainly due to modern monoculture agricultural practices that lack biodiversity and require insecticidal spraying. Mushrooms could help alter traditional agricultural processes to improve biodiversity by reducing the amount of land reserved for monoculture farming.
Mushrooms may also have the answer to a growing problem that honey bees are facing — disease.
10. Remediation of Environmental Disasters
Oil spills are one of the most widely reported and destructive environmental disasters of our time. Although mushrooms can’t single-handedly clean up entire oil spills, they can help restore the land once the bulk of the spill is cleared up. (...)
The scientists discovered that the fungi were using the radioactive material as a food source, decomposing it, and converting it to energy for growth. These fungi have been dubbed “radiotrophic fungi” and may hold the answer to cleaning up the environment after devastating nuclear events.