Artificial leather which you see on so many items is made from plants. But there’s nothing artificial about them. It’s an alternate material made out of different ingredients, similar to cotton, polyester, or spandex. This material is not only cheaper, but better too. Real leather tends to age badly, causing it to flake and crack, or become covered in scratches. Whereas leather made out of plant material tends to be more durable. People think of animal leather as a status item. This is because it’s more expensive, and we call it “real leather”.” But animal leather is only more expensive because it costs more work to create it. But this process is very inefficient and wasteful. People also view it as having status because it came from a living creature. This mentality is similar to those rich people who go to parks in foreign countries and pay someone to drug an exotic creature like an elephant or lion, which the person can proceed to “hunt” and kill. The person then takes the animal which was drugged and killed, and uses its head as a trophy. Doing this doesn’t make people manly, or like their outdoorsman ancestors. In fact it does the opposite. But that’s okay because we live in a different world with different sources of responsibility and happiness. You can still go camping or learn basic survival skills if you want to connect to your roots. But as we can see, these other forms of so-called rugged outdoorsmanship aren’t actually real and are merely an illusion.
Leather is a material made from removing the hide (or skin) from an animal, and tanning it. Animals are often alive when the skin is removed in order to make the process easier, as the body is still soft. It is an unethical industry, but we don’t have to worry about the difficulty of moving away from it because there are so many better alternatives. People argue that leather is merely a byproduct of meat. We kill a cow for its meat and use the skin as leather. This in itself is a problem. Both industries pay for each other. But even by themselves, both require the deaths and suffering of countless animals to create their products. The leather industry helps support the Factory Farming Industry. To stay profitable, this industry mistreats thousands of animals, cramming them into spaces too tiny to move, cutting and castrating them without painkillers, and forcing them to sleep in ammonia and feces.
Even then, they don’t just use cows for leather. In order to reduce the production costs, many companies import hides which come from dogs. We use exotic animals such as alligators or snakes. The animals are skinned alive.
Anyways, in our current world, the production of meat and leather are both industries which require the death and (unavoidably at the current moment) the suffering of an animal to create. Getting everyone to boycott meat is difficult. Getting them to boycott leather on the other hand isn’t. This is an important method to negotiate with companies which go to absurd lengths to mistreat animals, along with the factory farms and meatpacking plants which utterly disregard its workers. These companies cram millions of animals into spaces too tiny to move, living in feces, ammonia and disease. The ammonia burns the eyes and lungs of workers. They over-breed billions of animals which use up land and food for humans. All of this contributes to us drowning in pollution which we create. The process of tanning leather pollutes our air and rivers. Among other things such as plastics and detergents, these pollutants are impossible to completely remove.
You don’t have to dump all of your leather clothing immediately. You can merely avoid buying animal leather in the future. Get plant based leather for your coats. This reduces demand for animal leathers and makes the companies which produce it less money. You can buy shoes which aren’t made from leather, and cloth belts. If you really want leather belts or shoes, you can use plant based leather, but you don’t have to dump the animal leather immediately. Those who care about animal rights can gradually replace their clothing. Those who want to take the boycott further can start cleaning out their wardrobes. If you don’t want your old clothing to be wasted, these clothes can be donated to shelters, or to the poor, who desperately need clothing.
Anyways – it’s just a quick thought, have a good day everybody.