” Ecovative, the sustainable bio-materials firm partnering with The Living, can grow the bricks in approximately five days from agricultural by-products such as corn stalks held together with mycelium – the vegetative matter of mushrooms. “
These bricks are not made from waste products, but from stuff grown from agricultural by-products. The waste stream discussion is off base.
But the idea of creating bricks from garbage is not a new one. Back in the early 1970s there was a contestant on What’s My Line who had invented a brick product made from super compressing garbage into brick like blocks.
I have always taken my conservatism form the concept of conservation. As an early teenage, I was intrigued by ideas like this. I do not support government funding development of products like this, but I do encourage capitalist to work on these types of innovations.
I suspect they came across the toxicity issue with garbage very quickly.
“I do not support government funding development of products like this, but I do encourage capitalist to work on these types of innovations.”
Same here.
I appreciate any person who develops a product (yes, even bio-bricks) that helps fill a nice, employs people to produce it and can make a profit off of it.
The issue is that grain stubble is not garbage. If you remove it from the field, you will have to replace the nutrients that you remove with it. Farmers learned that long ago. So instead of making bricks from topsoil, why not stick with making bricks from clay?
Its not like we are running out of clay.