NOTE: credible sources only e.g. No green peace, PETA (especially these guys) etc. use of primary literature would be smiled upon. I am not asking about the use of animals that are raised in fur farms, such as mink, etc. but more common types of leather, such as sheepskin, cattle, rabbit etc. where the components of the animal can be used for other uses. e.g. you don‘t kill a cow just for skin and waste all that good meat.this is for personal interest. As such, I am willing to hear both sides of the argument, so long as no name-calling or eco-fanaticism takes place; respondents are allowed to have opinions, but their points must be valid, logical and sound. Be respectful, but more importantly be accurate. When answering you must assume that we HAVE to use one or the other; none of this we shouldn‘t be using the environment at all stuff.
cloth because its made of a plant but the leather when it was a cow needed to be fed on plants and that means that more plants were killed to make the leather than the cloth also cows produce methane and that would add to the greenhouse gasses
It has more to do with how it was grown/raised and processed than the actual material. If you have natural grazing animals that don't take a lot of resources, aren't pumped full of antibiotics and the skins aren't tanned with toxic chemicals (which most are, that's why the process has been shipped overseas) you would have less impact than convention cloths. Cotton is a highly sprayed crop and the dyes used on it are often extreamly toxic. I have found trying to buy eco responsible clothes is a challenge. There are many low pesticide, natural products being used, modal (wood fibre), bamboo, organic cottons but many are shipped half way around the world and are produced in less than ideal social conditions. I usually weight the ecological impacts more than the social and transportation. My hope is that with enough interest in low impact clothes the proctice will increase and there will be better social and local choices. I don't have much leather in my life, it is too expensive to find the stuff that wasn't produced with toxins. I do like many animal products, silk,cashmere, angora and wool, and try to find items that were not factory farmed, they tend to be expensive, but if you take proper care of them, they will last a lifetime. I avoid petroleum based synthetics. I try to reduce my over all consumption of oil, I avoid plastics as much as possible. I also avoid hybrids, that would be something like a poly/cotton blend. When you put a synthetic and natural product together you destine it to the landfill. A 100% polyester shirt can be recycled. A 100% cotton shirt can be recycled or biodegrade, a hybrid can't do either.
cloth because its made of a plant but the leather when it was a cow needed to be fed on plants and that means that more plants were killed to make the leather than the cloth also cows produce methane and that would add to the greenhouse gasses
It has more to do with how it was grown/raised and processed than the actual material. If you have natural grazing animals that don't take a lot of resources, aren't pumped full of antibiotics and the skins aren't tanned with toxic chemicals (which most are, that's why the process has been shipped overseas) you would have less impact than convention cloths. Cotton is a highly sprayed crop and the dyes used on it are often extreamly toxic. I have found trying to buy eco responsible clothes is a challenge. There are many low pesticide, natural products being used, modal (wood fibre), bamboo, organic cottons but many are shipped half way around the world and are produced in less than ideal social conditions. I usually weight the ecological impacts more than the social and transportation. My hope is that with enough interest in low impact clothes the proctice will increase and there will be better social and local choices. I don't have much leather in my life, it is too expensive to find the stuff that wasn't produced with toxins. I do like many animal products, silk,cashmere, angora and wool, and try to find items that were not factory farmed, they tend to be expensive, but if you take proper care of them, they will last a lifetime. I avoid petroleum based synthetics. I try to reduce my over all consumption of oil, I avoid plastics as much as possible. I also avoid hybrids, that would be something like a poly/cotton blend. When you put a synthetic and natural product together you destine it to the landfill. A 100% polyester shirt can be recycled. A 100% cotton shirt can be recycled or biodegrade, a hybrid can't do either.
