In 2017, after 30 years in construction products and material manufacturing, Joanne Rodriguez, founder and CEO of Mycocycle, left the industry.
“There was an emerging dialogue around material transparency and cradle-to-gate and things that would take in end-of-life products,” recalled Rodriguez, who first learned about construction waste issues while working as director of sustainability for Tremco Roofing and Building Maintenance. “I realized that rating systems like LEED would have designers checking a box of zero waste and then basically have materials being shipped over 500 miles to be burned or buried.”
Rodriguez struck out to begin environmental consulting, recognizing there was an issue around the materials produced by the construction industry. During a continuing education course on permaculture design, a sustainable approach to land management that mirrors natural ecosystems, Rodriguez learned about fungi—specifically their natural ability to reduce toxicity, recycle heavy hydrocarbons like petrochemicals, and create new materials through their root structures.
“It was one of those lightbulb moments that gave me pause. I wondered if we could put fungi on asphalt roof shingles and have it grow,” Rodriguez said. She quickly found a mycologist to put her hypothesis to the test. “We threw a handful of spores on some asphalt roof shingles, refined it, and I filed a patent and formed Mycocycle. It all started with the principle of just trying to solve a waste issue.”
Since then, Mycocycle has developed three patent-pending products: MycoFILL, MycoFIBER, and MycoFOAM. Rodriguez will be presenting the company during a panel discussion highlighting materials- and supply chain-focused startups at the Innovating Building Materials and Supply Chain Conference happening June 12, 2025 in Chicago, Ill. We had the opportunity to sit down with Rodriguez in the build up to the conference to discuss the continued development of the Mycocycle technology and business model.
Do you have any favorite examples of Mycocycle case studies or use cases?
One of my favorites was a roof tear-off with LendLease and the U.S. Army in Nashville, Tenn., where we were able to work with recycling company Rockwood Sustainable Solutions. We tried very remedial applications of our biomanufacturing platform, applying mycelium to asphalt roof shingles to reduce different toxins in the shingles. We did very well and it was the first scale proof of concept where we were generating tons of treatment and treating tons of materials. It was in a biochar plant, so it wasn’t clean and it wasn’t air-conditioned, which meant we got to see the fungi be resilient through the hot Nashville summer and persevere through that.
The other favorite was an early application working with gypsum drywall materials on a data center project for Meta outside of Kansas City, Mo., with Turner Construction and KC Dumpster. This was one of the first commercial deployments of our mobile bioprocessor, MyContainer, which is climate controlled and intended to be plug and play. We learned from our time in Nashville that fungi are like us in that they want to be comfortable and need to breathe. The MyContainer helped the intermediaries of the recyclers to house our bioprocess. We processed about 10-12 tons of gypsum drywall a month, which was turned into compost. It was a really cool example of validating the mobile bioprocessor out in the field.
In addition to drywall and shingles, what other types of waste can this technology address?
We’ve treated a lot, and there are a lot of opportunities getting carved out as a result of what we’ve validated at scale today.
We’ve partnered with Tarkett North America, one of the largest commercial flooring manufacturers in the world, and we’re working on the carpet industry’s waste because that’s a big problem outside of the pure built environment. We’ve generally thrived in the built environment because there’s a lot of these waste materials—11% of all of the greenhouse gas emissions are related to materials in the built environment.
Outside of that, we’ve been working with SPRM rubber (ie, standard polymerization rubber) that comes from end-of-life tires. Carpet and rubber are the two primary waste materials we treat today. We’ve been able to validate breaking the PVC bonds that might be in there, as well as the styrene-butadiene. We can absolutely break down natural products. The man-made ones are a little harder but we can absorb them and make them less available.
We’ve also been working as a part of an Army subcontract through the U.S. Department of Defense. We’re processing polyurethane foam waste from a lightweight wall manufacturer, and we’re creating a new form of biowall looking at the performance-enhancing characteristics of the chitin biopolymer.
Are there different types of fungi that are used for different purposes? Do you have a proprietary blend?
We do have proprietary species. Initially, we focused on research and development to determine the reduction in toxicity and what material (processed waste) could become. We’ve gotten to a point where we have a big library to choose from, but generally we use one of two proprietary species: Mike 1 or Mike 2.
Mike 1 came from a wild cultivator. So, it’s not like you could pick it in the woods or order it off the shelf. We actually developed Mike 1 over time for the majority of the waste that we treat. It’s really a workhorse, and we modify different things like food, air and temperature for it to perform differently on different waste streams.
Mike 2 was actually cultured off a waste stream that we treat. We looked to see what organisms were already on there and found a fungal species. We expanded that enzyme into Mike 2, and that’s also proprietary to us.
What makes up a single unit of Mycocycle?
We’re selling a material called MycoFILL sold per pound as a bio-based, performance-enhancing additive that can replace different plastics and petrochemicals. We work with compounders that make different plastics for all types of industries, including the built environment and building products manufacturers like Torquette, GAF, Armstrong and Sika.
When I started the company, I thought fillers would be an easy entry point into the construction industry because we could just drop them in other materials because they are chemically inert. While there’s a lot of truth to that and it could still happen, the problem is it wasn’t a really high value end market for us. We wanted to find higher value for the long term, and what we’ve been able to validate is we can sell MycoFILL as a bio-based additive.
In the meantime, we’re developing other equally lucrative pathways by selling our materials per pound to plastics compounders who are now taking us into consumer products, as well as the automotive industry. It’s very cool to see this ripple effect happen.
So, when you’re talking about fungi per pound, how much waste could one pound of the fungi break down?
Right now, it depends on the blend. Let’s say we’re at scale by 2029. We’ll be producing roughly 150 million pounds of material every year that will be displacing 100 million pounds of waste. We actually end up with more output than input because we’re adding mass to it from our treatment.
How is the generated product prepared to be used as a raw material?
In general, there are three steps.
First, we generate our treatment in bioreactors. We don’t genetically modify anything, instead we use adaptive evolution. For the next step, the product gets blended with a woody biomass or goes directly into being blended with the waste stream which becomes our ingredient that incubates for 10 to 14 days.
After incubating, we’re left with a mass of material called a MycoComposite, which is a block of mushroom and whatever waste was added. We kill the fungi so it’s inert, and then grind the block and sieve it into different sizes based on the application.
The ground up, sieved product is then sold per pound.
After being ground up and sold, what are the practical applications of the product?
Let me give a couple good examples. The rubber waste from SPRC Chrome Rubber is sold to commercial compounders of plastics where it’s being used in injection-grade polypropylene or high-density polyethylene. This is being put into automotive components and commercial pallets like what you might see at a grocery store. It’s a pretty high-value end use. Manufacturers are able to enhance the performance of something like high-density polyethylene, and actually start to replace it in percentage with this upcycled, bio-based waste material because it’s outperforming what was already being used.
For carpet waste, we’re actually seeing this be used as a new form of commercial infill for soccer fields and artificial soccer and football fields. Turf today has rubber infill, so if you watch sports, there’s rubber splashing up everywhere. We’re now part of a new strategy for a manufacturer that is using upcycled carpet waste that’s been processed by us to replace rubber. They’re finding it’s cooler in temperature than the rubber infill used today and offers more durability.
Our product is also able to reduce certain toxins in materials. We can break down long-chain fluorocarbons and become waste as a service for C&D landfills. We also get asked about durability. And, again, our product is an ingredient. What you do with it is up to you. We won’t be the 10% that ruins the durability of your product.
So when we’re thinking about the construction industry and market in particular, are there a lot of easy yeses when it comes to adopting innovative materials like this? Or are you facing a lot of big hurdles?
Unfortunately, the easy yeses aren’t in the construction industry. I know some manufacturers take exception to this, but manufacturers are built to say no. It’s not like some polymer you can just pull off the shelf. We’re really carving out a new niche of bio-based polymer additives. But, I think the adoption cycle for manufacturers will change as they see other industries start to use it and recognize that they’re losing opportunities to have Scope 3 emission reductions.
We are working with several organizations within the built environment sector; they’re just more interested in having their waste handled rather than finding new homes for it and product development. But, I also understand this because there’s usually a health, safety and welfare component to it, like keeping the building dry, fire-safe or mold and mildew resistant. I’m hopeful that as we continue to build these markets outside of the built environment, (construction companies) will start to come around and say, “Okay, we get where in the supply chain this goes now.”
We’ve been hearing a lot about how risk averse the construction industry can be. Has risk been a major hurdle with a product based in fungal root structures and how do you address that?
One-hundred percent, the construction industry is risk averse. I think there’s some bias around mycelium-based products. People think that bio-based materials can’t perform at the same level or better than materials that are being used today. It’s also a fungal root and builders try to keep stuff like that out. People ask if it’s going to come back to life if it gets wet or something. We have to say, “No, it’s not going to revert back to a mushroom anymore than my desk is going to go back to being a tree.”
Our product operates just the same as any other ingredient you put into the product. It’s really a lot of education to overcome these biases. We have to navigate the psyche of a building products manufacturer and the risk aversion that can certainly be weighted against bio-based alternatives.
Fortune favors the bold, and we are already seeing that with the supply chains that are being destabilized by tariffs. People might not get their products imported from overseas, but now everybody in the US is pulling from the same suppliers and there are scarcity issues. But, some of the people we’re working with are stabilizing their supply chain.
We’re also mindful of cost and performance. For cost, we don’t want to charge a green premium, and we don’t have to today. We want our performance to bring value to everybody that we’re working with, not just be cool because it’s upcycled waste from mushrooms. We have to actually be held to a standard that allows us to carve out an advantage for the clients that we work with. We’re also decarbonizing the material supply chain, and we’re able to reduce the carbon intensity of the carpet supply chain by over 98%. So, we know there’s a massive carbon reduction with our product, even with our somewhat inefficient manufacturing process. That will only improve over time.
What’s next for Mycocycle?
We are in the middle of a series A funding round. Roughly half the round is allocated with an internal co-lead (CLV). We are really interested in finding more CVC and strategic partners.
We are also expanding down into Lafayette, Ga., within the next month or two and we are expanding our operations here in Bolingbrook, Ill., to a 40,000-50,000 square foot facility—and that speaks directly to capacity.
People question our ability to scale the technology, but we have plans around that. We welcome anybody who is interested to come and visit us. My primary ask for these people is to keep an open mind so we can have a clear dialogue and coach each other through the process. I think that collaboration is what will establish really solid supply chains of new materials.
We say no to a lot of waste because we don’t want to just move someone else’s trash pile to our backyard. Ultimately, our biggest goal is to get more users of the bio-based alternatives so we can have a large and sweeping impact.
Discussion
Be the first to leave a comment.
You must be a member of the BuiltWorlds community to join the discussion.