The startup creates a durable yet backyard-compostable packing foam out of shrimp shells produced (and discarded) by the seafood industry. “You combine chitin with some starches and low grade fibers, it’s all bio-based,” said Felts; the company elaborated in an email that fungi, hemp, recycled paper and other sources also play a role. A block of Cruz Foam (left) after two days in moist soil; EPS is on the right (and it’ll probably look like that for a few hundred years).Early on, the startup experimented with all kinds of formulations, finding that the foam could be tuned to meet diverse requirements for shape, rigidity, and so on. The company kept the lights on for the period after I met them with an SBIR award from the NSF, with the Phase I and II awards yielding more than $2 million in non-dilutive money to work with. But now with the maturity of the process, an industry ready to pay a premium for green alternatives, and a real live order for millions of pieces, the company seems ready to explode into prominence. And if the company and material is to scale, it needs to fit within one of the waste categories already out there – and that’s a long process of negotiation with city, state, and private authorities.