The next generation of polymers will need features typically associated with biological systems, such as programmable material properties and chemical composition, self-healing, growth, and potential for sustainable and scalable manufacturing. While many of these functions remain beyond the capabilities of synthetic materials, biological systems, including mucus and bacterial biofilms, display self-healing, regenerative, and programmable properties. Studying biological materials, such as mucus, provides essential understanding of human health and can offer insight into designing therapeutic strategies grounded in tuning material properties. These natural systems can also provide design rules for developing the next generation of materials. This thesis outlines how we can learn from mucus, a natural material system, to engineer materials for bioremediation and biosensing, specifically, biomanufacturing, biosorption, and crack detection and mitigation. This research demonstrates how we can engineer materials for health and environmental applications, shifting from extractive, wasteful processes to regenerative, responsive systems.