Transcript:
In New York, mushrooms have become surprising climate heroes.
Every day, restaurants and grocery stores produce a lot of food waste, from vegetable peels to stale bread. When that waste breaks down in a landfill, it releases methane, a powerful planet-warming gas.
But a New York-based company called Afterlife Ag has found a better use for those food scraps.
Cofounder Winson Wong says his company collects food waste from restaurants and stores, grinds it down, and uses it as a medium to grow a variety of mushrooms.
Wong: “We grow, like, the blue oysters, lion’s mane, chestnut mushrooms, trumpets, pink oysters, pioppino, and a variety of others.”
As the mushrooms grow, the fungi start breaking down the food waste. After the mushrooms are harvested, the leftovers are donated to parks or farms to be turned into compost.
And the company sells the mushrooms back to the same restaurants and grocery stores that produced the waste.
Wong: “I think they’re just excited to be able to get produce from their food waste because it’s so novel for them.”
Wong says the company now has more than 60 clients – growing tasty mushrooms and reducing food waste across the Big Apple.
Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media
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