How it works

fungi: our baby’s new best friend

Fungi have been around for over a billion years. They are not a plant nor an animal and have their own kingdom. Fungi have given us penicillin, delicious shiitakes, and healing reishi. Like good bacteria in probiotics, there are good fungi too. They are even inside us!
A mycobiome!

The HIRO friendly fungi are the good ones – culinary grade and non toxic. Think of our friendly fungi as the probiotic for the HIRO Diaper that will help it return to the earth.

HOW TO HIRO

Step

Take soiled
diaper off baby

We designed the HIRO Diaper to be the least processed for the baby and also for the fungi to recognize it as food. Unbleached cotton, way less plastic (only where performance counts), NO toxic blue line (aka wetness indicator).

Step

Add the
HIRO Pouch

There are NO fungi in the diaper. Instead every HIRO Diaper comes with a sidekick: the HIRO Pouch, a cozy home for our friendly fungi. Just toss the pouch into the soiled diaper during changing time.

Step

Throw diaper
away like normal

No special throw-away steps, simply toss into the garbage and wait for our friendly fungi to wake up, and in a couple of weeks start working their magic. Saving the planet has never been easier.

Step

Friendly fungi
take it from here

When it ends up in a landfill, nature takes it from there, with our vision for the diaper to fully breakdown.
Sustainable. Low-effort. Very magical.

What if we could design out waste?

After 4+ years of working with nature’s OG ancient tech – fungi – we’ve created a way to help HIRO Diapers break down. In the lab, under ideal conditions, they started degrading in six months. In field tests, we saw initial breakdown starting in just two months.

Now, that magic lives in a little pouch. Safe for babies? Absolutely. Does it grow in every condition? Not yet. But we’re getting there, hand in hand with nature (and you).

This is how every HIRO’s Journey begins.

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Nature healing nature

In nature, waste doesn’t exist. Everything has a role in an intricate web of interdependence. What one organism discards, another transforms. HIRO embraces this principle, weaving care for the planet into the very fabric of daily life.

Nature healing nature

We have taken inspiration from nature’s own methods of breaking down organic material. Fungi have been evolving for hundreds of millions of years to break down complex carbon materials, and plastics are no different. It’s in our mushroom’s DNA to eat plastics.

Nature healing nature

Our philosophy is to do our best to leave the world better than we received it. Our friendly fungi are trained experts: they’re safe (culinary grade) to use, eliminate waste, and replenish soil to be healthy and nutrient-rich.

It Starts With Diapers

Every baby goes through about 6,000 diapers before childhood, making diapers the #1 household plastic waste item and the #3 contributor to landfills. Each one is packed with petroleum-based plastics that take centuries to break down, leaving behind microplastics that infiltrate our soil, water, and even our bodies.

It Starts With Diapers

The plastics found in diapers aren’t unique, they make up 75% of all soft plastics, the same ones polluting oceans, food packaging, and everyday products. If we can solve diapers, we can take on the biggest plastic offenders across industries.

It Starts With Diapers

That’s why we started here. By tackling the hardest-to-break-down product first, we’re building the blueprint for a plastic-free future. One where innovation and nature work together to eliminate waste at the source. If we can reimagine diapers, we believe that we can reimagine the entire system.

From End To End

HIRO is the first to bring shelf-stable, friendly plastic-eating fungi out of the lab and into the world. It has been tested by parents around the country and truly loved by all, both based on diaper performance and the feeling it creates, knowing that we are helping

Each HIRO Pouch contains a proprietary blend of shelf stable SuperHIRO Fungi, that when discarded, can activate in a couple of weeks. HIRO’s vision is to break down soft plastics in under 12 months in landfills.

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REDUCE. REGENERATE.

We believe in the principle of regeneration. We want to be part of restoring and replenishing the Earth, not only avoiding harming it.

Lab experiments

After 4+ years of research and design, we have achieved a breakthrough in fungal digestion of plastics.

Under the best conditions, the breakdown of the HIRO Diaper starts after 2 weeks of the diaper being in the landfill. Our lab testing shows colonization of various diaper materials and other common non-wovens. It compares fungi and non-fungi products in the lab, where you can clearly see fungal colonization and digestion (evidenced by the residue of digestive enzymes and the white fungal biomass against the test jar). The figure also shows the shelf-stable fungal technology emerging from stasis after 12 days. We are working on solving this for all the different conditions around the world.

Join us on this journey to help solve the global plastic crisis, together.