<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/16/oyster-mushrooms-expected-to-break-down-toxins-and-microplastics-in-cigarette-butts-in-australian-trial>
"Up to 1.2m cigarette butts could be consumed by oyster mushrooms that break
down toxins and microplastics as part of a trial funded by the Victorian
government.
Up to 9bn plastic cigarette butts are discarded in Australia each year,
according to the World Wide Fund for Nature, seeping harmful microplastics and
chemicals such as arsenic into waterways and soil.
Sustainability Victoria will fund a program that diverts butts from landfill to
a laboratory, where fungi will consume the plastic and chemicals. Studies will
then determine if the byproduct produced can be transformed into a polystyrene
replacement.
The program will be run by Melbourne-based Fungi Solutions, which has spent
years training mushrooms to consume cigarette butts, mimicking a process that
occurs naturally in the wild.
“Mushrooms have an incredibly adaptive digestive system and they use a lot of
different things for food sources,” said Amanda Morgan, the chief executive and
head of research at Fungi Solutions.
“This particular material is quite toxic so it takes a while to encourage them
in that direction, but we now have a strain of fungi that is going just
exclusively on cigarette butts alone.”
Morgan said most of the butts were consumed within seven days and mushrooms can
be quickly cultivated to consume large amounts of plastic if required.
Cigarette butts would otherwise take 15 years to break down in landfill."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
