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Each year in Australia, 6.3 million tonnes of packaging is put on the market, but only 54 per cent is recycled.

For every tonne of waste or packaging that goes to landfill, there are environmental impacts.

“That ends up in the environment more broadly, whether it be through waterways, or just as litter,” Mr Foley said.

Australia has a national target to remove all single-use plastic packaging by 2025, and for all packaging to be recyclable, reusable or compostable.

Mr Foley said Australia was already failing to reach that target, mainly because of COVID and because sustainable infrastructure keeps failing to keep up, such as the recent REDcycle program.

There’s a huge need for new innovative solutions, he said.

What is the organic waste problem?
RMIT’s Dr Simon Lockrey, who runs the reduce program at Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre, said the fact that mushroom packaging can use organic waste otherwise headed for landfill is a bonus when it comes to sustainability.

“Food loss and waste globally, accounts for 6 to 8 per cent of climate change emissions,” he said.

“So we really need to reduce food loss and waste, and packaging can actually play a role in that.”

For a material to be considered sustainable, the entire life cycle would need to prove low impact.

“In packaging systems, when we look at life cycle assessment, you look at the material intensity, the production intensity, how heavy it is to transport per unit of volume, as well as how many times it’s used — is it single use? Or is it reusable?” Dr Lockrey said.

Compostable packaging is a viable solution, as long as the production and transport process is low emission, and it’s properly composted and not left to release methane in landfill, he said.