mycoremediation.

Environmental Solutions from the WoodWide Web

Life in the 21st century often feels like a never-ending doom scroll. Oil spills. Hazardous waste polluting soil in the wake of forest fires. Lead-contaminated drinking water. Nuclear radiation. What do these problems have in common? First of all, they are common, localized disasters caused by our modern, industrial world—which contribute in a myriad of ways to the current mass-extinction event on Planet Earth. And secondly, each of these human-made threats to life share a remedy: fungi.

Like any solution to complex problems, fungi do not offer a silver bullet. The scientific community has barely begun to scratch the surface on the fungi kingdom in general, much less on the incredible applications of individual species to mitigate threats to our ecosystem. But across the globe, from Chernobyl to Spokane, fungi are demonstrating remarkable abilities to process and remove contaminants at sites of ecological harm. Fungi can clean soil and water of crude oil, radiation, microplastics and heavy metals. This process is called mycoremediation and it is effective, cheap, and in some cases, offers edible mushrooms as a byproduct.

We are lacking an actionable, global consensus on addressing climate change, and are plagued by a grotesque shirking of accountability from corporations and governments—the responsible parties for environmental disasters. As a recent example, union efforts thwarted by the United States congress and President Joe Biden to strengthen safety protocols could have prevented the catastrophic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3rd.

We need practical methods of stewardship that do not rely on the conscience of CEOs, senators, and lobbyists. Lifestyle choices such as commuting via bicycle, buying a Tesla, or sorting your recycling products (commonly marketed as “reducing your footprint”) are not enough to stop the deadly pollution of our waterways and air. To have meaningful effect, we need to turn our efforts directly to the source: the earth, and the extraordinary kingdom of organisms with the power to solve these problems.

Fungi at a glance

With a mere 148,000 species identified and described by science, it is now estimated the fungi kingdom includes between 2.2 and 3.8 million species. Described as the “link between animals and plants” by Paul Stamets, (author of Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Save the World,) fungi are vital to ecosystems as prolific decomposers of matter. The vegetative fungal growth in the soil (or other tissue) forms large, web-like structures, called mycelium. Threads of these mycelial webs (called hyphae) secrete enzymes into or onto its “food,” breaking down matter to a molecular level and redistributing it throughout the mycelial web in a process called “active transport.” Mycelial webs interact with other life forms in the soil, sharing and distributing energy with the roots of trees and plants. The health

BY DYLAN O’HARRA