Why I Don't Buy Leather

I used to wear a lot of leather. I wasn't even against it until a few years ago. Now I don't buy anything that's made of leather, whether that be jackets, bags or shoes - I don't buy anything that's made of any animal product, actually. Wool, fur, angora, skins, shearling. Pretty much anything that comes from an animal. But why would I even put myself through all that trouble of checking the materials used and 'depriving' myself of 'luxurious' items, and why do I think you should consider doing the same? I'm not going to really get into fur in this post because I think most people know how bad fur is. You can find more information about fur here. For some reason, I feel leather is still not considered to be as bad as fur. People are not really conscious of the implications leather has to the environment, animals, and even humans.

The fact is that anything you buy that's made of leather, directly contributes financially to the meat industry. There's a lot of information about why the meat industry is so corrupt, but I'm going to cover it very briefly. I am planning on doing a full post all about why I went vegan and all the aspects of veganism, but I know that's going to take hours and hours, so I need to find the time to sit and do that! 

• 51% of all global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture. So, the meat industry is the biggest contributor to global warming right now.

• It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef.

• Factory farms produce about 500 millions tons of manure each year. Runoff from factory farms is one of the leading causes of pollution in our rivers and lakes. 

• It takes up to 10 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of meat. If we took all the grain being fed to animals to produce meat, we could end world hunger several times over.

China is the biggest exporter of leather right now, followed by India. These countries have no animal welfare laws or have laws that go largely or completely unenforced. China doesn't have any laws or regulations that prevent people from using cats and dogs as leather or fur. What a lot of people don't know about leather is that a lot of toxic chemicals are used to prevent it from decomposing. The workers are then exposed to those chemicals. For them, there are very little regulations to protect their health. They are exposed to all kinds of toxins, and these people are getting sick because of that.

A big argument is that vegan leather isn't environmentally friendly. The truth is, neither vegan leather or leather are environmentally friendly. A life is a life, and no environmental factor should ever decrease the worth of that life. I don't have this problem because I generally don't buy new clothes. The majority of what I buy is second hand, and I don't have a problem with wearing second hand leather, because it's not newly contributing to any cruelty. I get that some people just feel grossed out by wearing animal skin, which I completely understand!

If you're buying a high end leather item that cost you thousands of pounds, that's usually higher quality leather, which will come from baby cows. We kill the adult animals, but we've reached the point where we don't even care about baby animals. Where exactly do we draw the line between pet and fabric? When did we decide that some animals are food, fabric and objects, and some animals we put value on? It shouldn't be like that. If dogs and cats are important to us, then using the same logic, all other animals... their lives are equally as valuable. Because all other animals are exactly the same as the ones that we love, and are all pretty much the same as us. We pick the sweetest, kindest, least aggressive animals that have never harmed us and we turn against them. We've called them objects simply to satisfy our tastebuds and our sense of style. Even though our technology has advanced to the point that there are cruelty free options, we still consider leather as an expensive, luxurious option. Maybe it's time to connect it to what it truly is, which is unnecessary pain and suffering.

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