Daily, thousands of used mattresses are simply thrown away around the globe. While the steel springs are easy enough to scrap, the bulky polyurethane foam often ends up in a permanent 120-year home in a landfill.

But a new study suggests a bizarrely organic solution to this synthetic nightmare: Penicillium chrysogenum — a common fungus. Researchers in Australia took the discarded foam, shredded it, and inoculated it with fungal spores.