The myco buoy is the brainchild of Sue Van Hook, a mycologist who as a child helped her grandfather with lobster buoys and was part of the team behind Ecovative, a company making packaging and other materials from mycelium. “We know that the myco buoys show promise,” Van Hook tells Bangor Daily News. “This is a solution for replacing styrofoam flotation.”
Van Hook recently partnered with ocean farmers for a small-scale test of the buoys along the Maine coast. The buoys are produced by growing mycelium in a mold using hempstock and other plant waste as fungi food. The resulting material is buoyant and biodegradable.