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Mushroom leather and how it is made (2020)
- DeathArrow 5y agoIn my country traditional craftsmen used tinder fungus to make hats and bags.
- sydthrowaway 5y agoTry Kombucha leather
- goldenkey 5y agoThis shroom leather is so 2000 late. Call me when you've got E. coli and Lactobacillus leather ready.
- ipsum2 5y agoNot sure why this is downvoted, kombucha leather is a real thing: https://www.instructables.com/Kombucha-Fabric/ https://www.instructables.com/Kombucha-Fabric/
- Freak_NL 5y agoIt is probably downvoted for the lack of context. (The link you posted doesn't really show that kombucha leather — rather than a piece of fabric for arts and crafts — is a viable thing either.)
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoI think mushroom leather is a cool invention, but at least at the present time, the vast majority of animal leather is a byproduct of food production, to the point that there is a surplus of leather because people like hamburgers more than leather products: https://qz.com/1308051/the-popularity-of-sneakers-is-leaving-the-beef-industry-with-a-glut-of-unwanted-hides/ https://qz.com/1308051/the-popularity-of-sneakers-is-leaving...
- jszymborski 5y agoI've always had a hard time reasoning about this. On one-hand, it's a waste-stream, which means that finding a purpose for it means that the resources gone into the animals from which leather is made become more efficient. On the other, if you believe that meat production at its current scale is bad for the environment, you're making it cheaper and subsidising it. Then there's the impact of all the chemicals involved in leather tanning, which are not inconsequential. I don't know what to think about leather in all honesty.
- colechristensen 5y agoIt looks to be 1-5% of the value of the animal at this point but some are just discarded entirely.
- notatoad 5y agoIt's important to consider the durability of leather products. IME, good quality natural leather products easily last 3-4x longer than alternatives. The tanning process isn't exactly environmentally friendly, but it doesn't have to be if it can reduce overall consumption by enough.
- causi 5y agoIndeed. Good leather products can last for years or decades. Leather belts, wallets, shoes, bags, etc all last far longer than their fabric alternatives.
- xorcist 5y agoCenturies, if cared for properly.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoBad quality, leather, on the other hand, disintegrates within a few months. I was at the Apple WWDC, where they passed out those leather jackets with the big blue "X" on the back. Mine didn't make it to the next WWDC, and I took great care of it. I think that they may have had a couple of versions of the jacket. I saw it reappear, for quite a while, on the bodies of Apple favorites (I wasn't one), for many years.
- vgel 5y agoI like how they mention the mushroom leather shoes are "gluten free", I guess in case you need to boil them for food during a famine...
- geodel 5y agoWell boiling them could yield a rich umami broth and certainly satisfy some late night vegan cravings.
- goldenkey 5y agoNothing like the taste of mushroom leather marinated in leaded city gasoline exhaust. :-)
- ahartmetz 5y agoIt seems to be a kind of silly "virtue signaling" at this point. Reminds me of fat free gummy bears and sugar free fatty products.
- aitchnyu 5y agoI thought most leather products are too poisnous to eat.
- goldenkey 5y agoRecycled rubber and plastics aren't inherently safe. They can contain lots of toxins. I'd prefer just the shrooms, sans the crud. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/25/lawmakers-concerned-chemicals-rubber-playgrounds-push-safety-rules https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/25/lawmakers-co...
- car 5y agoWhy alternatives to leather matter: Nowhere to hide: how the fashion industry is linked to amazon rainforest destruction [0] [0] https://www.stand.earth/publication/forest-conservation/amazon-forest-protection/amazon-leather-supply-chain#slidedeck https://www.stand.earth/publication/forest-conservation/amaz... Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29433500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29433500 Edit: fix yelling
- dzhiurgis 5y agoIf it can be grown around mould/shape then one could make 3D print of their feet to grow perfectly shaped shoes..?
- ben_w 5y agoYes. A while ago an artist did this for a mouse: https://www.hisour.com/victimless-leather-27501/amp/ https://www.hisour.com/victimless-leather-27501/amp/ https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/biotechnology-as-art-form-2184/ https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/biotechnology-as-art-f...
- isitdopamine 5y agoOne of the things I love about leather is it’s extreme durability! I’ve been wearing the same leather boots for 4 winters now, a leather jacket is steadily approaching the 10 years marks. More generally: sustainability problems can be mitigated or solved by buying stuff that lasts, see for instance /r/BuyItForLife Is mushroom leather as durable?
- DeathArrow 5y agoI have a biker leather jacket since 20 years ago. Still as good as new.
- afandian 5y agoIt's nice having durable products, and frustrating when things succumb to unnecessary failure. I think that given the externalities of producing it, though, it seems increasingly short-sighted to look at that metric in isolation. What about durability per hectare of dead forest or kilo of CO2? Though I'm quite fond of leather shoes, I'd gladly take a slightly less durable product that's many times less harmful to produce.
- isitdopamine 5y ago> less durable product that's many times less harmful to produce. A big citation needed here… I am not sure boots made from locally-sourced leather are less sustainable than boots made from synthetic fibers and petroleum derivates some place in South-East Asia.
- afandian 5y agoCitation needed for what? I don't think such a product exists yet. I was talking about the calculus of how you appraise products.
- chriswarbo 5y ago> locally-sourced leather Transportation costs are negligible compared to the direct and indirect impacts of raising cows https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/food-footprints?stackMode=relative&facet=none&country=Beef+%28beef+herd%29~Beef+%28dairy+herd%29~Prawns+%28farmed%29~Tofu+%28soybeans%29&Environmental+impact=Carbon+footprint&Metric=Per+kilogram&By+stage+of+supply+chain=true https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/food-footprints?stackMo... > A big citation needed here… Oh the irony...
- erdewit 5y agoThe mycologist Paul Stamets wears a hat made of this leather. He has to be careful around fire because of the flammability, it's made from tinder fungus after all.
- DeathArrow 5y agoBy definition, leather is "animal skin treated in order to preserve it, and used to make shoes, bags, clothes, equipment, etc" So, there is no such thing as mushroom leather. Maybe a mushroom leather substitute. >Mushroom leather is an environmentally friendly material because it can be treated without using polluting substances. At the end of it's life, the material is completely biodegradable and compostable. I think that is true for real leather, too.
- sokoloff 5y ago> can be treated without using polluting substances I’m not an expert, but from some prior research it seems like the tanning of real leather involves chemicals that would create pollution as a byproduct.
- criddell 5y agoIn the US, they are probably fine to call it "mushroom leather". You can say a product is made from imitation leather, faux leather, plastic leather (or pleather), etc... I believe only the use of unqualified leather would be deemed as deceptive by the FTC.
- gwbas1c 5y agoI believe the treatments in leather prevent it from composting compared to unprocessed animal skin.
- 7952 5y agoI wonder if these could be useful materials to grow on Mars.
- _Microft 5y agoHas anyone found out how the mycelium is treated after harvesting it? Does it need to be 'killed' before being used? Is the leather like texture embossed onto it or are there mycelia that develop similar structures all by themselves? There do not seem to be any obvious drawbacks. Could it actually be that we discovered a new type of material for building things or clothing that had been overlooked so far?
- jjeaff 5y agoI don't know anything about this mushroom leather, bit I do know that a lot of real leather also has texture stamped onto it. Real, "full grain" leather (the only kind that includes the external surface layer of the hide, is rather smooth. You have to look pretty closely to see the texture, though you will see some imperfections like scars if they aren't sanded away in processing. Most of the pebble like texture or wrinkled texture you see on leather products is stamped.
- ampdepolymerase 5y agoAnything biodegradable (in the composting sense) almost always does not last long absent significant chemical treatment. If you think current faux-leather technology is a step down from the real thing, then mycelium based products will be even worse. There is an inherent trade-off between biodegradable and long lasting products. What we can do is make products that are recyclable. In other words, engineer materials to only break down with a specific brand of artificially engineered enzymes that are not found in the wild. Unfortunately we are still a couple years away in terms of proteomics advancement to be able to do de novo synthesis with such precision.
- rdlecler1 5y agoThis is a false statement. Animal leather is also biodegradable. Durability of both comes from tanning.
- ampdepolymerase 5y agoI did say with the caveat of chemical treatment.
- more_corn 5y agoI wonder how this holds up under sunlight. One of the problems with leather is drying and cracking.
- bartvk 5y agoThat's a good question. Leather requires you use polish to keep it in shape. I wonder if this mushroom leather requires the same, and if so, whether regular polish can be used.