Sustainability assessment of mycelium bio-foam packaging compared to expanded polystyrene through environmental impact assessment
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Driven by the urgent need to identify sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based plastic packaging, this study evaluates the environmental performance of mycelium bio-foam (MBF) as a substitute for expanded polystyrene (EPS) in protecting a 32-inch flat-screen television (32-TV). A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted using OpenLCA software and the ELCD database to compare the impacts of MBF and EPS. The results indicate that MBF packaging offers lower environmental impacts overall, particularly during raw material acquisition, manufacturing, and end-of-life management stages. Global warming potential (GWP) (kg CO 2 eq) for MBF50, MBF100, and MBF150 was 1.32, 2.16, and 3.24, respectively, significantly lower than EPS at 3.35 kg CO 2 eq. Similarly, human non-carcinogenic toxicity (kg 1,4-DCB) values were 4.3, 6.2, and 9.3 for MBF variants, compared to 9.3 for EPS. In the transportation phase, MBF incurred higher global warming impacts (0.9 × 10 –3 to 2.8 × 10 –3 kg CO 2 eq) than EPS (0.4 × 10 –3 kg CO 2 eq) due to its higher weight. However, these emissions are offset by MBF’s biodegradability and potential for circularity. The findings underscore the importance of optimizing MBF packaging weight and design to enhance both environmental and economic viability. MBF emerges as a promising sustainable alternative to EPS, though continued innovation in material engineering and packaging design remains essential. Promoting the environmental benefits and cost-effectiveness of MBF packaging is key to accelerating its market adoption. Graphical abstract
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".