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Pilot Project Uses Mushrooms to Reduce Construction Waste
The United States Environmental Protection Agency says that construction and demolition (C&D) materials are a “significant waste stream” in the United States. How significant? The EPA reported that 600 million tons of C&D debris were generated in 2018, with more than 145 million tons sent to landfills.
Sara Neff, head of sustainability at Lendlease Americas told Connect CRE that Lendlease’s concerns about C&D waste led to discussions with Rubicon Technologies Inc. and Mycocycle about the possibility of sustainably dealing with roof shingle waste using fungus, a process known as mycoremediation.
The upshot was that Lendlease, Rubicon and Mycocycle joined forces with Rockwood Sustainable Solutions on a pilot program that combined mushrooms with ground-up waste material from a re-roofing project at Kentucky’s Fort Campbell re-roofing project
According to a release detailing the project, the mushrooms broke the waste down into “a new by-product that could ideally be introduced for reuse . . .” The release indicated that the pilot was believed to be the first of its kind study.
Neff said that the three mushroom strains used required about four weeks to break down the shingles. “The focus was on looking at how well the fungal species remediated the material under field conditions,” she explained. “This was the first step in our research into what might be possible in terms of mycoremediation of C&D waste streams.”
Neff also said that three fungi species were selected for the project. “They are widely distributed and fairly common fungi found in many regions,” she added.
Joanne Rodriguez, Founder and CEO of Mycocycle commented that the company’s mycelium pilot projects are succeeding with many different materials. “I’m excited to see where our work, in partnership with Lendlease, Rubicon and Rockwood Sustainable Solutions, takes us,” she said in the release.
Neff indicated that Lendlease and its partners are “in active discussions” about expanding this pilot project to other waste streams and parts of the commercial real estate business. She acknowledged that while Lendlease doesn’t own the actual process involved with the mushroom/asphalt shingles pilot, “we do hope this work expands, and are actively helping other companies explore mycoremediation.”
- ◦Development
