by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada 
on 05.24.11
Photos: Wikipedia & Flickr, CC
Mario & Luigi Would be Proud
Sometimes, discovery is about putting things together in new ways. We know thatmushrooms can be great at breaking down pollutants, and we know that disposable diapers are a huge problems, with mountains of the slow-degrading poop-containers filling up landfills… So how about finding a kind of mushrooms that fests on diapers? That what researchers at the Metropolitan University in Mexico City have apparently done. Read on for more…
Pleurotus ostreatus. Photo: Wikipedia, CC
In an article published in Waste Management (the journal, not the company), Alethia Vázquez-Morillas describes her research:
cultivating the right type of mushroom on soiled nappies can break down 90% of the material they are made of within two months. Within four, they are degraded completely. What is more, she says, despite their unsavoury diet the fungi in question, Pleurotus ostreatus (better known as oyster mushrooms), are safe to eat. To prove the point she has, indeed, eaten them.
The second photo in this article shows what the Oyster mushrooms look like. They are good at this job because they feed on cellulose, the main material used in disposable diapers. In the wild, the Oyster mushrooms grow on dead trees, so they have the enzymes to break down cellulose…