Rethinking the Root: How GyroPlant Is Eliminating Single-Use Growing Media from Global Food Supply Chains

April 8, 2026·18 min·1 clip

Oscar Shorts says indoor farms may produce as much waste as food and discard valuable roots.

1. Decarb Connect examines how Gyroplant aims to eliminate single-use growing media from controlled environment agriculture. 2. Tom Angus hosts Oscar Shorts, Gyroplant’s Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer, while Marcus is identified as the product design engineer co-founder. 3. The episode asks whether indoor farms can replace recurring substrate purchases with reusable infrastructure that reduces waste and carbon. 4. Oscar Shorts defines controlled environment agriculture as growing plants through precise control of lighting, water, nutrients, and climate. 5. Gyroplant’s first product replaces conventional substrate with a silicon-based mechanical structure extending environmental control into the root zone. 6. During COVID, Oscar Shorts and Marcus built an off-grid hydroponic system designed around a spiralling structure and upside-down plant growth. 7. Growers showed more interest in the reusable silicon-rubber cup than in Gyroplant’s original complete growing system. 8. Oscar Shorts explains that substrate is any material holding a plant, while hydroponic farms avoid soil because of biological and handling risks. 9. Peat, rock wool, and coconut coir are described as common substrates requiring extraction, industrial processing, or repeated shipping. 10. Oscar Shorts says growers discard substrate after each lettuce harvest and purchase replacement material through fragile international supply chains. 11. Gyroplant’s Gyro Cup is made from food-grade silicon rubber and is designed to last at least 10 years. 12. Oscar Shorts says Gyroplant has proven that plants can grow indoors without raw bulk material, using a reusable mechanical structure instead. 13. The conventional substrate industry is described as an annual market worth more than 10 billion dollars and operating since the mid-20th century. 14. Oscar Shorts says 50% of growers in the UK and United States do not make a profit, making affordability more immediate than sustainability. 15. One vertical farm’s life-cycle analysis reportedly ranked substrate waste as its second-largest emissions source after energy. 16. Oscar Shorts says Gyroplant is developing machinery to reuse substrate at scale and is exploring ways to valorize discarded roots. 17. The interview uses a direct explanatory format, moving from substrate definitions to manufacturing impacts, farm economics, and policy. 18. Tom Angus and Oscar Shorts maintain a practical, commercially focused discussion about adoption barriers, trials, and international markets. 19. Best for controlled-environment agriculture operators, climate-tech investors, and circular-economy researchers. 20. Might skip it if single-use materials and indoor-farming economics are not relevant.

As heard by us

Gyroplan treats growing media as a repeat purchasing problem, then positions silicon rubber as the infrastructure-level answer.

Indoor farming substrates become the business problem in Decarb Connect's conversation with Oscar Shorts, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Gyroplan.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You get a close look at the moment a single-use growing substrate starts behaving like infrastructure.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Decarb Connect