Usually, when something starts to rot, it gets thrown in the trash. But Joanne Rodriguez wants to turn the concept of rot on its head by growing mushrooms on waste to transform it into something better.
“We train fungi to eat waste and create renewable, bio-based raw materials,” she told TechCrunch.
Rodriguez is the founder and CEO of Mycocycle, one of the new startups using fungi, nature’s recyclers, to create plastic-like polymers for a post-fossil economy. Today, almost all plastics are made from oil and gas and are responsible for about 3.4% of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to the OECD.
“We want to be able to compete with the 3Ms, the BASFs and the Dows of the world,” Rodriguez said.
This is not a small goal. Plastics are seemingly everywhere, from food packaging to building materials. Thanks to this ubiquity, the global plastics industry is worth $624 billion, according to Grand View Research.
Mycocycle hopes to not only capture part of this market, but also inject its vision of circularity by using its mushrooms to literally consume the plastics produced by its competitors.
The company turned its attention to a group of fungi called white-rot fungi. In nature, fungi tend to grow on things like fallen leaves and wood, but Mycocycle fungi were chosen for their ability to break down materials produced from oil and gas. The startup uses natural selection to find people best suited for the job, choosing not to genetically modify strains. “I drew that line pretty early,” Rodriguez said.
The processed gypsum waste is ready for use in industrial fillers and foams. Image credits: Mycoworks
When fungi get to work, they break down organic waste, impregnating it with their root-like hyphae. Although hyphae resemble plant roots, they are not made of cellulose like a plant’s fibers. Instead, they’re made of chitin, the same substance that insects use to build their exoskeletons. When these hyphae come into contact with carbon-based molecules, they break them down, using the food source to grow and extend their reach.
Rodriguez said Mycocycle fungi can act on a wide range of wastes, including paper, rubber and nylon. In a recent commercial demonstration, the startup grew its mushrooms on drywall debris left over from the construction of a Meta data center. The startup delivered one of its bioprocessors to a nearby dumpster company, which crushed the drywall and threw it into the processor along with Mycocycle’s mushrooms. The bioprocessor then maintained the mushrooms’ optimal temperature, between 60 and 80 degrees F, for about two weeks.
Once the cycle is complete, Mycocycle kills the fungi to ensure they do not continue to grow. “We don’t want to put mold back into our building,” Rodriguez said. The end result is a product that can be sold, rather than waste that costs money to dispose of.
The resulting material can be used in a range of products including insulation, acoustic panels for noise control and filler materials to bulk up things like concrete. (The recycled material from the Meta Project will likely become filler material since the fungi only consume the paper that covers the drywall, not the gypsum it envelops.) The fungi do not consume all of the rubber, but rather envelop it in a web of mycelium. all of which, according to Rodriguez, Mycocycle can process again when it reaches the end of its life.
Two Mycocycle employees prepare the company’s mycelium-based treatment. Image credits: Mycoworks
Mycocycle, founded by Rodriguez in 2018, is currently working to refine its process for recycling rubber crumbs, the waste produced from old tires. This is a huge potential market, with the United States producing around 280 million each year.
To further its R&D and commercialization efforts, the company has raised a $3.6 million seed extension, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The round was led by Closed Loop Partners and included investments from the Illinois Invent Fund, Telus Pollinator Fund for Good and US Venture.
Mycocycle will generate more than $1 million in revenue this year, Rodriguez said. “We will have a positive margin.” The crumb rubber processing part of the business is perhaps the most promising, she added.
“One of the strategic investors in this round is specifically interested in this large-scale rubber market, precisely for the reason that we have been recycling tires in the same way for 40 years,” she said. “They see the risk and they see the opportunity.”
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