Sara Novak is a fan of Eben Bayer's TED talk on the possibility of using the mycelium found in mushrooms to form a new plastic/Styrofoam replacement:
We currently spend $20 billion a year to produce all sorts of Styrofoam, from coolers to carryout containers and it takes 1.5 liters of petrol to produce just one cubic foot of the stuff. Currently, according to Bayer, Styrofoam occupies 25 percent of our landfills. Instead, we need to come up with a material that fits into nature's own recycling system.