If Green Island, NY based start-up Ecovative Design and US car manufacturer Ford have their way, you will soon have a new option to choose from - mycelium filled bumper, side doors and dashboards. However, before you wrinkle your nose at this fungus root network, bear in mind that this may be one of the biggest 'green' ideas to hit the automobile industry, since the invention of the electric engine.

Ecovative design's tale began in 2006, when Gavin Mcintyre and his roommate Eben Bayer were working on a school assignment to create natural glue. Having grown up in a farm, Eben recalled the intricate root system or mycelium of wild mushrooms, that made it almost impossible to pull one off the ground and, decided to see if that would work.

For the next three months, the duo tried every kind of experiment until they finally succeeded in their mission. They then began to wonder if their project had value beyond the classroom and could be used to bind other natural products to create a lightweight material, sturdy enough to replace Styrofoam packaging, currently used for most consumer products.

Intrigued, they began experimenting and fine-tuning their idea until they hit upon the right formula. Today, the company's technicians mix together husks from corn, oat and other grains with mycelium. They then store the trays in a darkened room for about five days so that the roots can grow and bind together the husks. Once everything is bound, the mixture is cooked and dried.

The result is a solid piece of foam-like material that is not only waterproof, but also fireproof and best of all, decomposes completely 30 days after being buried under the ground. Astonishingly, 'EcoCradle', does not cost any more than Styrofoam. Since the company launched its product in 2007, large corporations like Steelcase and more recently computer manufacturer Dell, have been using it to ship their products - But the interest from automaker Ford is a totally new market.

The US based automaker who already uses soy-based foam for their seat cushions, wishes to go even greener and replace the approximately 30 pounds of petroleum-based foam it uses per car, with some green alternatives, and one of the products they are testing out is EcoCradle.

While there are still some challenges the company has to overcome, not the least of which is how to grow such massive amounts of 'foam', with uniform density, both parties remain optimistic that a truly compostable car may not be too far off in the future. We sure hope so.

Resources: autos.yahoo.com, manufacturingdigital.com