You know who’s going to save us? Ecovative’s going to save us.

Jamie Dimon isn’t going to save us.

The CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch isn’t going to save us.

Don Draper isn’t going to save us.

Justin Bieber isn’t going to save us.

LeBron James isn’t going to save us.

Kim Kardashian isn’t going to save us.

Bradley Cooper isn’t going to save us.

Angelina Jolie isn’t going to save us.

Ted Cruz isn’t going to save us.

Elizabeth Warren isn’t going to save us, though, god knows, she stands a better chance of saving us than does Ted Cruz.

Mark Zuckerberg and Marissa Yahoo aren’t going to save us. (Although Bill Gates will likely help.)

You know who’s really going to save us?

Brainy, nerdy science guys like Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, that’s who’s going to save us.

At least, having read Ian Frazier’s recent article on them in The New Yorker, they’re the guys – along with others like them -  I’m pretty darned sure are going to save us.

Eben and Gavin:

…were fascinated by mushrooms growing on wood chips, and observing how the fungal mycelium strongly bonded the wood chips together. This inspired them to think of new ways of using mycelium as a resin. In a class at Rensselaer, called Inventor’s Studio, they formulated a new process for binding together insulating particles, creating some remarkable materials that could replace Styrofoam™. Rather than just decreasing the environmental impact of conventional polystyrene foams, this invention created a whole new paradigm where composite materials are literally grown, harnessing the incredible efficiency of nature. Upon graduating, Eben and Gavin were strongly encouraged by their faculty mentor, Burt Swersey to take a big risk, forgoing “real” jobs to found Ecovative. Within weeks, mycologist Sue Van Hook at nearby Skidmore College read about their mushroom insulation in the local paper and found them. She provided the expertise needed in growing fungi. Eben and Gavin set up their first lab in the Rensselaer Business Incubator in 2007.

Although I never knew what it was called, I’ve always been fascinated by fungal mycelium myself. In fact, whenever I came across it while walking in the woods, I would always say to myself, “Hey, that stuff looks like Styrofoam.”

But since I am singularly lacking in scientific imagination and the entrepreneurial spirit, I never got beyond the “Hey, that stuff looks like Styrofoam” stage in the old product life cycle.

Fortunately for the world, Eben and Gavin have plenty of scientific imagination and entrepreneurial spirit, and they are going to save us from Styrofoam.

Like many of the miracles of science and industry that are inextricably intertwined in our way of life, Styrofoam is a mixed bag.

Yes, it allows us to safely pack and ship items marked fragile; it allows America to run on Dunkin’; it allows us to carry beer and soft drinks in flimsy coolers that are so cheap we don’t care if they fall apart on first use.

And they also are a carcinogen and a major environmental disaster.

Pieces of Styrofoam swirl in the trash gyre in the Pacific Ocean and litter the world’s highways and accumulate in the digestive systems of animals and take up space in waste dumps…Foamed polystyrene beaks down extremely slowly, in timespans no one is sure of, and a major chemical it breaks down to is styrene, listed as a carcinogen in the 2011 toxicology report issued by the National Institutes of Health. (Source: The New Yorker; don’t bother to click through unless you subscribe to the mag…)

All this is why lots of cities are banning Styrofoam. Locally, that includes Brookline and Somerville, Mass. And why I will need to reconsider those cups of tea I get on occasion from Dunkin.

So here’s what Eben and Gavin are doing about it:

Ecovative’s materials start on a farm, with the parts of plants that cannot be used for food or feed and therefore have limited or no economic value. We strive to utilize only renewable, regional raw materials.

A patented process cleans and prepares a blend of agricultural byproducts, and inoculates it with mycelium. You can think of this process as planting the mushroom tissue. There are never any spores involved. This inoculated mixture is filled evenly into forms in an automated process.

Then, the real magic happens. The mycelium grows indoors in about a week without any need for light, watering or petrochemical inputs. It’s like a vertical farm for mushroom materials. The beauty of this process is that we grow the shape you need.

Every cubic inch of material contains a matrix of 8 miles of tiny mycelial fibers! At the end of the process, we put the materials through a dehydration and heat treating process to stop the growth. This final process ensures that there will never be any spores or allergen concerns.

As we as an all-consuming society continue to keep our heavy foot on the gas pedal of unbridled consumption – environment be damned, you fuzzy-headed tree-huggers – stopping just doesn’t seem to be an option that anyone wants to opt for.

So we need the Ebens and Gavins of the world to come up with ways that we can consume (and live) sustainably.

Eben and Gavin, I salute you!

You and the other sustainability geeks out there give me hope for the future. I hope you make a billion dollars. I hope you win the Nobel Prize for better living through chemistry. I hope you have long, fruitful, ecovative and invention-ful lives.

You almost make me want to up and move to Green Island, NY, to work for you.

Go forth and save the world!