‘Magic Mushrooms’​ Saving Water

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‘Magic Mushrooms’​ Saving Water

From making biofuels to eating up harmful plastics, fungi could help us build a greener planet. 

Making paper green

Recycling paper is all well and good, but how we produce that paper has an environmental impact, too. According to the Unesco-IHE Institute for Water Education, making a single sheet of A4 uses up to an astonishing 13 litres of water. The fungi  Trichoderma  and  Humicola  speed up the process and thereby save water, according to the  Advances in Enzyme Research  journal and the  Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences

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Cellulase enzymes speed up the process of making paper.

 

 

Curbing cotton contamination

Processing cotton isn’t all that environmentally friendly, but the  Aspergillus fungus can make it greener. Research in  The Mycota  book series’  IndustrialApplications  into fungal enzymes says that using catalase enzymes from the fungi can break down the excess bleach in the waste water from the process, thereby making it less harmful. 

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Aspergillus can remove bleach from the water used in cotton production. 

Source: The Guardian

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