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Ecovative is a relatively new company (founded in 2007) that
designs and creates biodegradable packaging materials. Think environmentally-friendly replacements
for Styrofoam. Nowadays, they do so
much more - they're expanding on their early ideas of structural insulating
panels and considering flexible packaging options.
This week I had the opportunity to tour the company's
facility. This isn't the first time a
CR4 blogger visited Ecovative - april05 toured the company back in 2009. In those days Ecovative was
still located in the Rensselaer business incubator.
Today they occupy building space in nearby Green Island and
have much more room for growing and experimenting. Ecovative's new office is designed with
collaboration in mind. It's an open
space and it's obvious that there's a lot of fun involved - there's an entire
chalkboard wall and I spotted a LEGO Hogwarts castle.
Ecovative Process
You may be wondering - what exactly does Ecovative do? Their website gives a great explanation, but
here's a quick summary of the process:
- Receive agricultural byproducts, like corn husks
- Prep the material and inoculate it with mycelium*
- Mycelium grows into desired shape over the
course of a week
- Materials sent through dehydration and heat
process to stop growth
*Mycelium is like the roots of a mushroom. As it grows and digests the agricultural
byproducts it's added to, it binds them together into a structural material.
On the tour we had the opportunity to see this process from
beginning to end. It's really neat to
see how quickly the mycelium begins spreading without the help of light, heat,
or even water.
Growing a Tiny House
Chelsey
H blogged about tiny houses back in April.
Ecovative is building its own tiny house which it will be exhibiting at
the Tiny House Fair in Vermont next week.
Actually,
Ecovative is not just building the house - they are growing
parts of it!
The insulation dries airtight and strong, saves on material
costs, and is fire resistant. Ecovative explains the mushroom tiny house, which
has specially-grown insulation and ceiling tiles, over on its blog so be sure
to check it out for more information.
Thanks, Ecovative, for the tour and the work you do. Hopefully, one day, the combination of
environmentally friendly and safe materials will be in homes across the world.
Image Credits:
office, drying racks, and mushroom tiny house courtesy of Ecovative (http://www.flickr.com/photos/75778657@N06/
and http://mushroomtinyhouse.com/)
Resources: http://www.ecovativedesign.com/, http://mushroomtinyhouse.com/
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