| The short version is that fungi are an effective way to remove a wide array of contaminants from damaged environments or wastewater. They can bioaccumulate heavy metals in their fruiting bodies for harvest and removal and break down organic pollutants, textile dyes, leather tanning chemicals and wastewater, petroleum fuels, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, herbicides, X-ray contrast agents, and even explosives such as 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene. | The short version is that fungi are an effective way to remove a wide array of contaminants from damaged environments or wastewater. They can bioaccumulate heavy metals in their fruiting bodies for harvest and removal and break down organic pollutants, textile dyes, leather tanning chemicals and wastewater, petroleum fuels, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, herbicides, X-ray contrast agents, and even explosives such as 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene. |
| Wikipedia states that the byproducts of this remediation can be valuable materials themselves, such as enzymes (like laccase), [[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-026-01785-z|pharmaceuticals]], or edible or medicinal mushrooms but the bioaccumulation factor means that this option will definitely vary by site/contaminant, and it may be //very// important to keep people and animals away from these mushrooms. For example, oyster mushrooms are effective at breaking down all kinds of stuff (we'll get into specifics in the next section), including PFAS - but they also bioacumulate PFAS in their tissues. This means a mycoremediation crew could accelerate the removal of PFAS from a contaminated site by harvesting the mushrooms and sending them for safe destruction, but if they're eaten by animals, the PFAS would accumulate in their tissues and move up the food chain (if those animals get eaten by predators) or otherwise persist in the environment. | Wikipedia states that the byproducts of this remediation can be valuable materials themselves, such as enzymes (like laccase), or edible or medicinal mushrooms but the bioaccumulation factor means that this option will definitely vary by site/contaminant, and it may be //very// important to keep people and animals away from these mushrooms. For example, oyster mushrooms are effective at breaking down all kinds of stuff (we'll get into specifics in the next section), including PFAS - but they also bioacumulate PFAS in their tissues. This means a mycoremediation crew could accelerate the removal of PFAS from a contaminated site by harvesting the mushrooms and sending them for safe destruction, but if they're eaten by animals, the PFAS would accumulate in their tissues and move up the food chain (if those animals get eaten by predators) or otherwise persist in the environment. |
