My research at Pace University is focused on alternatives to plastic – especially within food packaging and textiles. I am becoming an amateur polymer chemist, fungi cultivator, and healthy materials advocate. It’s beautiful and it’s changing my life. Funny how studying the end of the world could do that to a man….but here we are.
In time, plastic will kills us all (all living things).
The memeification of microplastics minimizes their danger and makes light of one of the most pressing environmental hazards facing us today. Sorry to poop on the party.
Toxic chemicals in plastic polymers have been found to contribute to numerous negative health outcomes in mammals, including disruptions to the endocrine, metabolic, and renal systems even at small amounts of exposure (Kataria et al., 2015; Stevens et al., 2024). Dietary exposure to low levels of toxic chemicals found in plastic is common in humans given how much of our food is packaged in plastic (Biryol et al., 2017; Muncke et al., 2020).
Plastic also lacks circularity, biodegradability, and is one of the least likely materials to be recycled (Di et al., 2021; Dalzell and Lynch, 2020; Eriksen et al., 2023; NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, 2023).
We need to stop using plastic.
Viable alternatives exist and I’m currently exploring starch- and chitosan-based bioplastics. Also….glass is right there!!!!!
I am growing Mycelium and decomposing coffee grounds and wood.
Mycelium is a part of a fungi. Underneath every mushroom is a spiraling web of hyphae that compose mycelium and are decomposing a substance.
