COUNTDOWN TO TOKYO PACK: Could packaging be closer to nature than this?

While plastics and bioplastics continue slogging it out to develop the most sustainable plastic options, one company has developed a packaging form that makes plastic redundant.

Material science company, Ecovative, has created a new class of home-compostable bioplastics based on mycelium, a living organism. Mycelium is mushroom 'root', the vegetative part of a fungus. The new packaging is grown from mycelium and low value crop waste.

Ecovative's Mushroom Packaging is a high-performance, environmentally responsible, cost competitive alternative to plastic protective packaging forms such as the plastic foam EPE, and moulded packaging made from EPP, EPS and paper pulp. It performs well as cushioning for high end products, like consumer electronics, appliances, furniture, and industrial equipment.

At the end of its life, Mushroom Packaging is compostable both at home and in industrial operations.

The company is to be a first time exhibitor at Tokyo Pack 2014, and will demonstrate Mushroom Packaging at booth 3-47.

“Asia is a world leader in multiple industries, from designing and manufacturing high-tech products that require specialised packaging, to state of the art mushroom cultivation. We’ve had global customers asking us when we would be bringing Mushroom Packaging to Asia. We’re thrilled to be in a position now to grow global partnerships for Mushroom Packaging,” stated Ecovative chief executive officer, Eben Bayer.

In 2012, Ecovative formed a partnership with Sealed Air Corporation and is currently producing Mushroom® Packaging at its production facilities in Iowa and New York, USA.

The packaging form is already doing well in the US. It has been adopted by major companies there such as Dell, Crate & Barrel and Steelcase, and has won a number of packaging awards, including the DuPont Packaging Innovation Diamond Award, the Greener Package “Innovator of the Year” award and Popular Science’s “Best of What’s New”.

Food for thought (and new packaging development projects): Read the story about Ecovative's new “Grow It Yourself” (GIY) product. This enables designers, artists, educators, and innovators to grow their own creations with Mushroom Materials – like the 10,000 bricks created for architect, David Benjamin, to construct the 14 metre Hy-Fi tower that now stands in the MoMA PS1 courtyard.