We cannot have peace on the earth until our hearts find delight in killing the living creatures,” says Devesh Kumar, a Class 10 student of Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh, who recently won the Compassionate Kid Award from PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) for his project The New Leather that proposes making leather from mycelium. The 15-year-old started working on this project in October 2020.
Due to the closure of schools in the pandemic, he did not get the opportunity to conduct lab experiments, but grew mushrooms at home using Agar to create a mycelium brick that resembled a real brick. “It took me over four weeks to do the whole process because the substrate requires time to increase, and post that some time is required for the brick to solidify. The aim is to minimise killing animals, and make leather production sustainable with the use of mycelium,” he adds.
Prior to this, Kumar had bagged an award at the Delhi State Level Children Science Congress 2020 for the same project, for which the competition was organised virtually in February 2021. Apart from bags, shoes, jackets, belts, wallets, and straps of watches, mycelium can also be used for making a wide variety of things like insulated bricks and next gen plastic. Kumar believes that this wonderful discovery would not only bring a change in our way of living, but would also help the earth to decelerate global warming.
“I did extensive research and came to know that the leather industries contribute a lot to greenhouse emissions. But mycelium is durable and environmentfriendly. It is made from chitin, which is a strong macromolecule with high tensile strength because of the strong hydrogen bonding. Moreover, it is cheaper as it originates from a spore.” It’s a successful alternative to leather but it’s not being used because of lack of awareness, he says.
“Indian industries must consider the use of mushroom mycelium in leather production instead of butchering and slaughtering animals for it. I would like to highlight that many Western countries have already started using this,” adds Kumar. Generating awareness about this sustainable idea is the key step. “Otherwise nobody would buy it. People need to realise the consequences of global warming and take up green initiatives. As we do currently for animals rearing and bringing them up same can be done for mycelium. It would not require space, since it is just a microorganism,” concludes Kumar.
THE MYCELIUM BRICK-MAKING PROCESS
We need to collect the mushroom sample and prepare agar a gelatinous substance readily available in the market. The mushroom tissue is placed in an agar plate to grow. Then, a substrate a mixture of
agricultural waste, sugar and cat food/dog food and energy drink is prepared for mushroom expansion.
Then, the mushroom mass is placed in a substrate allowing it to grow in volume and mass. It takes 2-3 three weeks for it to grow. Then, we remove the mass from the jar, break it into pieces and put it in a brick mould. Then, the brick is removed from the mould and is kept for a week to help it strengthen. Once dried, we put the brick in an oven to kill the organisms, and our mycelium brick is ready.