Andee here! So happy to have you read this story of my special friend Farhad, who messaged our Facebook page one day with a non-descript message: “We need all your cigarette butts!”. As a protective and confident Mother Butt, I excitedly responded with “I will give you our butts if you join our organization!”
When we met for coffee, I was so surprised to see a young man – younger than me – sitting sweetly and patiently in the center of the room, facing the door watching for me. No holds barred, he told me all about how he got into mycology. A vulnerable story to say the least. Full of the wisdom of the forest, his eyes shined with life as he explained that in observing a bird on a hike, he realized he needed to play his part in healing our Earth with the gift of mushrooms. It was then that I realized that Farhad himself was the embodiment of a mushroom.
After that splendid caffeine experience, I absolutely trusted him with our hopes and dreams and sent him with roughly 10,000 cigarette butts. Now, 9 generations of oyster mushroom myco-remediation later, we are seeking lab testing to find out what toxins and heavy metals actually remain once the the oyster mushrooms have fruited and the mycelium has dried. Our educated guess, or HYPOTHESIS, is that we have significantly reduced the percentage of toxicity of all cigarette butts that have been integrated. Now to prove it!
We have high hopes about this project, and for good reason. We have Farhad on our team.
Thanks Farhad – I love you!
– Andee
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