How Mushrooms can Clean up the Ohio Train Derailment!
The East Palestine, Ohio train derailment and the subsequent burning of the dangerous cargo released a lot of toxic chemicals across the Midwest and East Coast. Deadly chemicals like dioxins, furans, and PFAS were created and spread from the burning. There were also toxic chemicals that got into the groundwater and Ohio River, like vinyl chloride and oil.
Fortunately, mushrooms can used to break down and clean some of these compounds! Mycoremediation is the use of mycellium to decompose complex chemicals into their base elements. They can also be used to sequester heavy metals like lead and mercury.
One specific technique used to clean streams and rivers is called mycofiltration. This involves putting mycelium like oyster mushrooms in the streams and rivers to slowly purify the water. Innoculated woodchips beds can used in shallow streams and ditches or burlap sacks of innoculated straw floating in larger bodies of water.
To address the specific chemcals that were released in the train derailment and fire, there are a few The mushroom genus Ridgoporus has been shown to break the most dangerous and persistant dioxin, TCDD. It broke down TCDD by 73% in just 28 days. Here is the full study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926669018309324
The Garden Giant (Stropharia rugosoannulata) has been shown to effective breaking down furans which were released in the fire. Full study below :https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23832059/
The Garden Giant mushroom is one of the easiest fungi to grow! It can be added to your garden or mulch and help clean and fortify the soil. This mycelium cleans up PCBs, PAHs, and destroys coliform and e. coli bacteria.
Turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) has been extensively studied for their mycoremediation properties. These mushrooms can break down simple dioxins and sequester heavy metals like mercury. Turkey Tails can also decompose PAHs and Plastics.
Oyster mushrooms can also can degrade simple dioxins. They have been used in various small and large scale mycoremediation projects including cleaning up oil spills. Oyster fungi can also break down synthetic dyes and plastics!
How Mushrooms can help Clean up the Ohio Train Chemical Spill!
