"Our hope is that by providing more ways to potentially reduce our reliance on single-use plastics, we can help lessen the waste that ends up in landfills and the ocean; nature offers elegant, sustainable solutions to help us get there," says Caitlin Howell, the corresponding author of the study from the University of Maine. The researchers say this work is a successful demonstration of a food-safe fungal coating and shows this technology's potential to replace single-use plastic products. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-edible-fungus-paper-fabric-liquid.html
This is a good result, but of course a lot more work is needed to result in a useable product. Now, if they can identify the actual chemical(s) in the fungal coating and find a way to produce it cheaply, we might hear about it again.
