Cigarette Butt Bioremediation With Mushrooms

I started playing with a mushroom species called Pestalotiopsis microspora, found in Equador by students from Yale (2012). They observed it to be degrading Polyurethane, a type of plastic. My first attempt was in 2018, though I lost it to contamination. None of my experiments were recorded appropriately. My son recorded each step of degrading a foam couch cushion and put it on Reddit, then YouTube, under the channel "Tryinto". Without properly measuring the weight before inoculating, the only way to see if the Pestalotiopsis microspora (PM) was by looking. Observing the original size of the plastic chunks to see if they get smaller. Over time, a period of 3 months, some of the plastic chunks did get smaller than they were originally cut. Not long after, the growth of the mycelium stalled, but did not die.

This current project is with a cross-bred mycelium, using Pestalotiopsis microspora and Pleurotus ostreatus (oyster mushrooms). Pleurotus ostreatus (PO) is the species we did our "Toxic Soil Remediation" project with, as it has been shown to effectively remove hydrocarbons from polluted soil.

Currently (3 Jan 2025) we have just cut the filter patch grow bags containing the cross-breed mycelium in a sawdust and soy substrate, with sterilized cigarette butts mixed in. The goal is to fruit the substrate and collect the spores from the mushrooms. Should they grow, the spores will be germinated and grown into mushrooms again, once again with cigarette butts. The goal is - after several generations - to have the fungi adapt and use the cigarette butts as a food source.