[HN Gopher] Plant-based substitute leather developed from pineap...
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Plant-based substitute leather developed from pineapple leaf fiber
and rubber
Author : gnabgib
Score : 27 points
Date : 2024-06-17 16:41 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.asiaresearchnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.asiaresearchnews.com)
| helloimben wrote:
| Hell yeah. Love to see it.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Very cool. I wonder how it compares to fungi based approaches -
| https://mylo-unleather.com/impact/
| vundercind wrote:
| > Notably, it exhibits much greater strength than leather
| alternatives made from mushrooms.
| jonah wrote:
| Which is a low bar... Most of the mycelium-based materials
| have pretty serious pliability and durability issues.
| thalesmello wrote:
| I'm happy that exists as an alternative for those who care about
| this.
|
| I (meat-eater) am done with leather alternatives for now. A while
| back, I bought the official leather-alternative case for my
| everyday-carry Roav sunglasses, but it didn't last me very long.
| Frustrated with that, I ordered a custom made case with real
| leather, that cost me double the price, but it has been aging
| really nicely.
|
| For me, paying extra for good leather, that will last longer and
| is byproduct of meat I already eat, seems to be the best decision
| in terms of sustainability. Hopefully technology will improve so
| that we have more options in the future.
| vundercind wrote:
| Leather's near-magical. It's so resilient it's almost hard to
| believe it's real.
|
| It'll be cool if someone even gets close to that with
| alternatives, especially at a similar price, but I'm not
| holding my breath.
|
| I get the impression these alternatives are mostly a
| replacement for bonded "leather" so far, which is such a shit
| material that they ought to be able to surpass it without
| trouble.
| surfingdino wrote:
| My daughter was very disappointed with the shoes she bought
| recently. They lasted less than half the time real leather
| model from the same brand did and cost more! They also
| developed creases and were difficult to polish. I am ok with
| alternatives when they are alternatives not replacements. It's
| like with vegan vs. vegetarian options at my local japanese
| food place. They replaced all but one vegetarian dish with
| vegan variants and are not bringing the vegetarian dishes back.
| That's not choice, that's forced replacement.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Frankly, I'm not sure we should completely abandon leather.
|
| Large mammals die all the time, and it would be more wasteful
| to just burn the leather, rather than use it as a durable
| material.
|
| Besides, how much livestock is grown and slaughtered
| specifically for leather? A minute amount, presumably, but I'm
| willing to be proven wrong in anyone has the data.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Not sure that that's a great alternative considering how slowly
| pineapples grow...
| jonah wrote:
| Agricultural byproducts are great if they are going to be
| burned or otherwise wasted otherwise. (But TBH, they should be
| tilled back into the ground to add organic matter to the soil.)
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is there something specific to pineapple vs some other plant
| that makes it dependent on pineapple? How did they decide to
| use a pineapple? Did they do the same thing with several types
| of plants and pineapple won, or was there something more
| sciencey where they looked at the make up of the plant that
| something in it indicated it would be the ideal plant?
| Inquiring minds want to know
| jayd16 wrote:
| Its from the leaf fiber. Presumably that's already plentiful
| enough to be considered waste.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Would love it if they started comparing plant based leathers to
| plastic based leather alternatives and actual leather. When those
| comparisons are favorable I expect there will be a bigger impact
| on both sustainability and the market.
| jonah wrote:
| Great to see more and more movement in this sector. In addition
| to working in place of animal leather, these plant-based options
| can also replace petroleum-derived materials like Polyurethane
| (PU) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC).
|
| There are already plant-based materials out there[1] that are
| commercialized and in production which pass the stringent
| durability/performance/etc. criteria for automotive seating and
| other high-wear applications.
|
| [1] e.g. https://vonholzhausen.com/
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Sure, and just like all synthetic leathers, it will be both more
| fossil fuel intensive _and_ an inferior material to the real
| thing. The current leather market is supplied almost entirely by
| slaughterhouse byproduct, and this just sounds like more needless
| human waste.
| AA-BA-94-2A-56 wrote:
| Your assumptions are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in your
| comment. At the moment hydrocarbon-based vegan leather _is_
| inferior economically and more fossil fuel intensive. I don 't
| necessarily agree that a vegan leather based on rubber and
| pineapple leaves (agricultural bi-product) is going to be more
| economically or fossil fuel intensive.
|
| Do you have experience in this industry or something, or did
| you just pull this out of your ass?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| There are no assumptions. Leather is a byproduct of feeding
| ourselves: https://www.americanleather.com/resource-
| center/where-does-l...
|
| The only possible impetus for more synthetics is a new
| product to market towards first world vegans who feel bad.
| ggm wrote:
| The functions leather provides should be on some "milli-helen"
| arbitrary scale:
|
| Has Feather-Pucker: 0/10
|
| Smells like a dog when wet: 0/10
|
| Sliiightly stretchy but mostly comes back to shape except after
| 10,000 times: 0/10
|
| will remove bugs from windscreen: 0/10
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