Northumbia university graduate Jamie Pybus has devised a household system for cultivating edible mushrooms using leftover coffee grounds as a growing medium.
Called Fungi Factory, the kit provides a use for the increasing number of coffee grounds that are currently discarded by UK households.
Fungi Factory comprises four elements, including a storage container for coffee grounds
Rather than throwing coffee grounds away, users can repurpose them as a bed for growing oyster mushrooms in just four weeks.
"The concept helps to highlight possibilities of waste recycling within the home by bringing the often unseen, circular economy into the hands and control of people," said Pybus.
Users should mix discarded coffee grounds with mycelium and leave them to germinate The system comprises four products, a storage container for grounds, a vessel for mixing the grounds with mycelium, a domed fruiting environment in which the mushrooms grow, and a grinder.
Loose coffee grounds are put into the storage container with mycelium spores. These spores germinate and starts the process of forming into mushrooms.
The fruiting environment is the place where the mushrooms grow
Coffee grounds are a good fertile medium for growing mushrooms and the kit offers an easy way to do this in a domestic environment.
"Shrinking space-intensive processes into a home-sized product is vital to the success of local manufacturing and food production," said Pybus.

"I really wanted to cre...