The mushroom that works like a green 3D printer

Student project series (1) - A team of environmental engineering and architecture students at EPFL has discovered a way to grow a biodegradable material from mycelium and sawdust. Their new material - made using their own special recipe - has promising properties and could serve as a replacement for plastic. It's not just mycologists who are interested in the physical properties of mushrooms. Today a growing community of environmentally conscious consumers is looking more closely at mycelium, or the part of mushrooms that grows underground. This thread-like substance can bind together various substrates, such as woodchips, and the resulting mixture can be molded into things like bricks, panels, packing chips, furniture and a host of other objects. Eight students at ENAC are studying how mycelium - which individuals can grow themselves - could potentially be used to replace plastic. "This idea came up when we met with architecture students at our school to develop an original, innovative alternative to existing building materials, which generate a lot of pollution," says Gaël Packer, an environmental engineering student at ENAC.