Revolutionizing Product Packaging the Eco-Friendly Way -- With Mushrooms!

We've all seen (and used) them: seemingly endless amounts of plastic and Styrofoam material for shipping and packaging everything from televisions and computers to toys and mail parcels. But we often never think about the impact those reams of bubble wrap and blocks of foam will have on our landfills and other parts of the environment when disposed of.

Well, Eben Bayer is on a serious mission to replace such "unsustainable" packaging products with more eco-friendly material that is biodegradable and home compostable . What's more, it's made from seed husks and mushroom roots!

Eben is co-founder and CEO of Ecovative Design, an innovative bio-materials company that grows sustainable replacements for the many petroleum-based packaging material we use that is harming the planet. Eben founded the company with colleague Gavin McIntyre, who serves as chief scientist of the enterprise.

Eben and McIntyre invented MycoBond, an organic adhesive - made from mycelium (the tiny fibrous roots of the mushroom) and seed hulls from rice, cotton and oats -- that turns agriwaste into a foam-like material, forming the basis for their packaging and insulation products.

"Our products require less energy to create than synthetics like foam, because they're quite literally grown," says Eben. "Also, at the end of their useful life, they can be home-composted or even used as garden mulch."

Watch more about Eben below

Learn more about Eben here