We’ve spent this season tracing how fungi, and especially mycelium, can shake up industries and remediate the harm caused by climate change. We’ve talked about foraging, growing, healing and commercializing mycelium. But there’s one frontier we saved for this episode, the last of this season. It’s one that, here at Healthy Materials Lab, we’re honestly most excited about: affordable housing. We speak with Chris Maurer and the team at BioHab, who are building housing with mycelium.  This...

Mycelium based materials have a wealth of potential applications. But how does a new material get out of the experimental phase and into mass production? That transition is often where material development can stall. Luckily, that isn’t happening with mycelium. In this episode, we speak with Gavin McIntyre, who is the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Ecovative. Ecovative is a revolutionary company at the forefront of the mycelium industry. He leads us through the journey Ecovative...

Did you know that Mycelial networks can break down dead plant or animal matter and they can connect with the roots of living plants to share nutrients between them? Whether that was news or not, mycelial networks are much more complicated than you might imagine.  To get down in the dirt with them, we spoke with Maya Elson. Maya works with CoRenewal, a nonprofit dedicated to providing education and research in ecosystem restoration, where she leads projects around post-fire bioremediation and...

The power of fungi has been neglected by academic institutions and marginalized in the larger society. By the 1960s the American imagination had linked fungi to magic mushrooms, the counterculture movement, and Nixon’s war on drugs. That lingering association has meant that American mycophiles have gathered in community at the margins. We wanted to dig into those margins with William Padilla Brown, a citizen scientist who’s been thriving at them. William is the founder of Mycosymbiotics, and...

In this episode we go on a journey led by revered mycologist John Michelotti into the forests of the Catskill mountains to learn the basics about what makes mushrooms so special. Can fungi change the way we approach our ecosystem? Can they give us healthier food systems, healthier bodies, healthier materials, and healthier housing? That’s what we want to explore this season, and there was no better place to start than deep in the woods with an expert. Visit catskillfungi.com to schedule a...

In this episode we go on a journey led by revered mycologist John Michelotti into the forests of the Catskill mountains to learn the basics about what makes mushrooms so special. Can fungi change the way we approach our ecosystem? Can they give us healthier food systems, healthier bodies, healthier materials, and healthier housing? That’s what we want to explore this season, and there was no better place to start than deep in the woods with an expert. Visit catskillfungi.com to schedule a...

Trace Material explores the intersection of our lives and the lives of the materials that surround us, one material at a time. This year, for Trace Material’s third season, the podcast team at HML is investigating fungi. Does this mysterious kingdom hold the keys to a healthier future? Tune in this summer to find out and subscribe today!

Over the course of this season, we’ve told stories of iconic plastic objects like Tupperware and Bakelite and looked at how this material has woven itself into our culture and our bodies. We’ve traced how we found ourselves in the plastics age, but what comes next? To help us envision the future plastics, we invited Pete Myers to speak with us in our first ever live taping of Trace Material. Pete is the founder and chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences (which publishes the famous...

We're looking back at the stories we've told on this season of Trace Material. How did we find ourselves living in the plastics age and where might we go from here?  Be sure to go back and listen to any episodes you may have missed this season! For more information, head to our website at healthymaterialslab.org/podcast, or give us a follow on Instagram @healthymaterialslab and Twitter @parsons_HML. If you've been enjoying this season, please take a moment to rate and review us on Apple...

More than any other generation, Gen Z’s lives have been marked by climate change and climate anxiety.  In this episode of Trace Material, we speak to young climate activists to understand how they’re imagining a future away from plastics and a materials designer working to make that future a reality. For more information, head to our website at healthymaterialslab.org/podcast, or give us a follow on Instagram @healthymaterialslab and Twitter @parsons_HML. If you've been enjoying this...

The nation’s first plastic bag ban in Suffolk County, NY set off panic in the plastics industry. How did industry create the myth of recycling and squash potential bag bans? We speak to Assemblyman Steve Englebright, who sponsored the bag ban in 1988, about the decades long fight to ban plastic bags in Suffolk County and the tactics used by the plastic industry to thwart these bans. Plus, Kara Napolitano from SIMS Municipal Recycling Facility in Brooklyn offers us a new way to think about...

The push to promote disposable plastics created mountains of new waste that will never biodegrade. The burden of that waste has been placed almost entirely on the shoulders of low-income communities of color.  This week, activists share a story of community opposition to the construction of a garbage incinerator in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark during the 1980s, and their ongoing fight for environmental justice.  For more information, head to our website at...

The connections between vinyl chloride and diseases like cancer were first understood inside the factory setting. Workers were quite literally on the frontline. But today we're taking you outside the factory walls and into fenceline communities and suburban homes. For part one of this story, listen to The House of Documents. For more information regarding PVC and vinyl chloride, head to our episode page.

In the 1970s, workers in PVC factories across the country began getting sick with a rare form of liver cancer.  While the plastics industry claimed they were unaware of what was causing that cancer, internal documents told a different story. Today we’re telling a story about corporate concealment, cancer, and of course, plastic. 

In post-war America everything that people touched––paint, fabric, dishes, jewelry––could be made of plastic. But how did this first generation living in a plastic world learn to accept it as part of their daily lives?

Our story starts at the turn of the twentieth century, when the natural materials everyday objects were made from were becoming scarce. Enter the era of the inventor, it was time to forge new materials and build a new world. 

Here's a first listen of Trace Material Season 2: Stories from the Plastics Age, coming your way June 16th! We were curious: what will future societies think of us when they dig up relics of our present day? 

This will be our last episode of Season 1. We’re taking a look back at all we’ve learned over the last 12 episodes. We’ve traced the story of hemp from its colonial roots in America, through the war on drugs, and legalization. The future of the plant is...

In this episode, we’re heading to New Castle to see how the folks at DON are building a hemp industry from the ground up to support their vision of healthy, affordable, accessible housing. 

Alex Sparrow is repairing centuries old buildings across the UK, and in doing so, laying the groundwork for a carbon neutral future. As you may have guessed, he’s doing it with HempLime. Alex literally and figuratively wrote the book on HempLime...

On this week’s episode, we’re heading back to the Sun Valley to Talk Shop with Blake Eagle. Blake is a contractor who, after years of exposure to the unhealthy materials of standard practice building, decided to construct Idaho’s first HempLime home for...

This week we’re Talking Shop with Cameron McIntosh, the owner of hemp/lime construction company Americhanvre. Cameron is a leader in the emerging US HempLime landscape and in this episode, he chats with HML co-director Jonsara Ruth about how his past...

For our first ever Talking Shop episode, HML Director Alison Mears spoke with Hempitecture co-founder and CEO Mattie Mead.Based in Ketchum, ID, Hempitecture built the United States’ first public use hemp building as well as many private residences....

This episode features Chris Magwood, who is our neighbor to the North. He talks to us about the industry's successes and struggles and what he hopes for the future. But...we don't just talk about hemp, Chris is a natural building omnivore and you'll...