One would think that advocates of “compassionate living” would be concerned about the other human beings on this planet and the well-being of the environment, home to many of the animals vegans claim to care so much about.

Q: “I’d like to ask in all earnestness, if you’re passionately vegan, why would you want to wear shoes that simulate the skins of animals?”

A: Those of us that choose not to consume or wear animal products still have to wear something to work. It’s not that we want to wear something that looks like leather, that’s just what society (and my employer) mandates. I can’t show up for a job interview in a pair for hemp clogs with cork soles.

Some boutique companies are producing vegetable tanned leather but this is far from mainstream and it still begs the question, do you consider domesticated animals a systemic part of the environment we are trying to protect or a resource to be exploited for our consumption and fashion?

Before these, I had bought a pair of mid-high end leather shoes ($200 in 1996) that only lasted a year and were uncomfortable.

Synthetics are no better for the environment than the sometimes toxic tanning chemicals. However, natural tanning, such as vegetable tanning uses naturally occurring tannins (hence the name), rather than chromium (for example), but are dearer and take longer to tan.

Arguably one substitutes one set of eco/ethical problems for another, as one poster says, a Vegan substitute is not necessarily a better one ecologically, although it might be on an animal cruelty basis. Then of course the argument for synthetic substitutes could be said to damage wildlife and habitats as a result of raw material acquisition etc not to mention the use of fossil fuel derivatives, even if by-products. Add to that, transportation of the items then you are in the same territory as any other product.

Point being, that leather is not automatically a ‘bad’ product any more than a Vegan one is automatically a ‘good’ product, on ecological grounds.

You are also forgetting that leather needs to be processed with toxic chemicals in order to be wearable (it would rot otherwise). So it is far from being all natural.

I am sure that there are better ways to process leather without using dangerous chemicals, but there are also environmentally friendly ways to produce synthetic materials (besides natural materials such as organic cotton and hemp) by recycling already produced materials.

Matt & Nat, for instance make bags from recycled plastic bottles and other non animal materials. Susan Nichole also sells fantastic environmentally friendly bags made from recycled materials.

In the end, when all things are considered vegan production is more eco friendly and definitely more ethical, if you remember that real leather and fur come from living, breathing creatures that feel pain.

Also, leather production doesn’t just cause water pollution, as this Ecologist investigation shows:
http://www.theecologist.org/trial_investigations/314208/hell_for_leather.html

Caitlin – there’s plenty of toxic chemicals used in the production of leather