Earlier this year we posted about Ecovative Design's Greensulate material, which can be shaped into packaging material and is made from seed husks and mushrooms rather than polystyrene and petroleum. An Earth911 article takes a closer look at Greensulate's fascinating development process, devised by Ecovative principals Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre.

* Agricultural byproducts such as seed husks, which would normally be agricultural waste, are used as the building blocks. * Once the seed husks are wet, they are combined with mushroom roots, which act as a binding agent. With a conventional product like polystyrene, petroleum is used as the binder. * The seed husks serve as "food" for the mushroom and the self-assembly begins. According to Bayer, "The factory is the organism" in this highly efficient process. * Mushrooms like darkness, so no light or energy is needed until the end of the process when the material is dried out and shaped. * The "acorn" composite material can be shaped into packaging material for everything from televisions to medicine, and test installations of "greensulate," the organic insulation have already begun.

Ecovative doesn't just reuse waste as the basis of its product; the company takes it a step further up the sustainable manufacturing food chain by upcycling waste into a product that once again has value.

"We design our products with the idea that in nature there is no litter," Bayer says. "And we are setting up an infrastructure to follow this model and relieve a waste stream in the process."

Ecovative Design's website is here.