From the contributor: Exploring Ecovative's styrofoam alternative

When “TechKnow” producers asked me to do a story on two guys who met at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and had made some important discoveries by “experimenting with mushrooms,” I formed a very different idea in my head from the reality that I eventually encountered with Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre.

I traveled to upstate New York to the facilities of Ecovative, the company founded by Bayer and McIntyre, where their team manufactures packaging material made from agricultural waste and, yes, mushrooms.

Well, at least the roots of fungi: Mycelium acts as a resin that holds biomaterials together. Once cooked in huge ovens, similar to what you’d find at a bakery, the biomaterials are formed into various shapes for packaging of all kinds of products, from computers to cars. With that mix, Ecovative has developed a completely biodegradable alternative to the Styrofoam and bubble wrap norm that, for years, has been literally suffocating the earth.

Walking into the Ecovative facility felt a bit like entering the world of Willy Wonka—except that it smelled like mushroom soup instead of a river of chocolate. I was surrounded by all kinds of large-scale equipment, including something called a trammel—a huge screened cylinder that separates material by size and is often used for the manufacturing of organic products.

There was a lab with percolating pots and microscopes, for which I had to don a hairnet and surgical scrubs before entering. There was a room that smelled like a barn and was filled with piles of hay. There were floor-to-ceiling mobile shelves stacked with ag-waste and mycelium in varying stages (and colors) of growth or fermentation. There were all of the industrial-sized ovens where the packaging material was baked into different shapes and sizes. There was even something called “The Dirty Room,” which formed another dubious connotation in my mind.

It goes without saying that my sordid assumptions say a lot more about me than they do about Bayer, McIntyre and Ecovative. I also went into this story with some preconceived notions about “millennials,” a moniker that has been applied to a generation commonly reputed to be self-absorbed and entitled.

In Bayer, McIntyre and the other mostly young and uniformly hip scientists and innovators at Ecovative, I found a group passionate about finding sustainable solutions to packaging, and thereby bettering life not only for us, but for future generations. They were anything but self-absorbed or entitled.

And their Edisonian spirit was practically contagious. I left Ecovative feeling positive about the future for the first time in a long time, and as if the earth might be granted at least a few worthy stewards after all.

I also found young people taking the best practices of the corporate world and incorporating them in such a way to their company ethos that creativity and innovation are never stifled. Ecovative appeared to me a place where the bottom line is met, without ever losing sight of the higher good.

It also proved a lot of my ill-formed assumptions entirely wrong—especially about two young guys experimenting with mushrooms.