Comments on: The Eco Ethics Of Fur

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:01:00 +0000

There is a new fake fur on the market, comprised of a blend of 41% Hemp and 34% certified organic cotton on a recycled PET backing for durability. It’s not on their website yet, but contact samples@envirotextile.com to get more info! Not that I’m against eradicating wild NZ possums at all…!

By: kevin

kevin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:38:37 +0000

>>>:

heart already said: it takes 15 times as much energy (ie, OIL) to make a ranched fur jacket as a faux fur jacket. Ranched fur is no more “natural” than herds of a million cows grazing in the recently deforested Amazon basin and farting out thousands of tonnes of methane.

Ranched fur has to be fed meat. The meat animals have to be fed plants (corn probably, or soy) which have to be grown and fertilized and transported and processed, each stage of this process using petroleum. with animals usually giving around 10% conversion efficiency, and two stages needed for a carnivore based coat, you need 100 times as much corn as the body weight of the animals needed for that coat. if a coat uses the skins of 20 or so 10 lb foxes, it needs 20000 lbs of corn to produce that fur, and all the tractor fuel, fertilizer and transport costs associated with that. and that’s before you get into processing of the actual skins.

yes polyester is non biodegradable. But your computer isn’t made of wood either, is it? At this point, given the production costs associated with real fur from ranched carnivore species, faux is the lesser of two evils.

By: >>>

>>> — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:41:08 +0000

Heart— did you not notice that faux fur is made from petroleum and acrylic? It probably took other toxic chemicals to make “neon pink” faux fur, too. Real fur is biodegradable because it is real animal skin, but if taken care of it can also last much longer than faux, meaning less production. Faux fur is not biodegradable… it’s polyester. I think it is silly that people who claim to be environmentally friendly are passing up a natural product in favor of a manufactured one.

By: Chrys

Chrys — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:26:44 +0000

Note that the problem in New Zealand is currently being dealt with by using Poison 1080 which causes an inhumane death for the invasive species–Paihamu–which is also called Australian Brushtail Possum. Marketed fur is humanely collected. It is truly green. Plus, you don’t have to wear it as fur. It is spun with wool to make a cashmere-like fabric that is softer, warmer and lighter than plain wool. Check out http://www.Wild-Wool.com.

By: Heart

Heart — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:33:36 +0000

Fur is NOT green in any way. You must take in account the amount of energy & chemicals it takes to raise & slaughter the animals.

I only wear fake fur which is neon pink ie. does not look real at all. It’s silly to make a big deal out of using petroleum when everyone is buying lip gloss, lotion, fruit and candy bars which are coated in this same chemical.

Trapped fur uses 3.5 times more in total energy content than faux fur.
Ranched fur uses 15 times more energy than producing synthetic fur.

Animal fur and skin production cases serious air and water pollution.

More chemicals are needed for animal fur production to preserve the fabric from naturally decomposing: Ammonia, chromates, bleaching agents, coal tar derivatives, hydrogen peroxide, formaldehyde, sulphides and ranched fur animal feces are contaminating YOUR water!