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I have written before that one of the things I find most difficult about being vegan is handling my love for leather. In order to cope, I have quite a few faux-leather items in my closet, from a pair of cherished combat boots to bags and jackets. However, even with all this cruelty-free leather, I still feel a small pang of guilt in my stomach when I slide on a pair of pleather flats, because I know that even man-made leather takes its toll on our planet.
Say what?! Yep…it’s true. Man-made leather is full of some pretty nasty, synthetic stuff, including Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which contain phthalates. Phthalates are industrial chemicals which are thought to disrupt our endocrine system, and have been linked to liver cancer. It is becoming easier to find PVC-free pleather, but this type of leather usually contains petroleum-based products, meaning it takes non-renewable resources like oil to make that fabulous faux-leather trench coat you just bought. Because this type of faux leather is produced with fossil fuels, carbon dioxide is emitted during production. Green-houses gas emissions are not usually what jumps to mind when you are purchasing “cruelty-free.”
Of course, personally, I would rather purchase plastic leather produced with petroleum than real leather, which contributes to the cruelty and slaughter of millions of animals, not to mention that the toxins used in tanning are extreme pollutants. Then you add in the trees that were cleared to create pastures (or, more likely, warehouse space) to house the animals, all of the feed produced, the antibiotics created, so on and so-forth. It’s enough to drive a compassionate girl crazy.
The bottom line here is that nearly everything we purchase that has been mass-produced has some sort of environmental drawback, whether it’s from the materials used to make the product, the transportation used to get it to you, or anything in between. This is where, as an educated consumer, you need to decide where you’re going to hold back, where you’re going to cut your losses and where you’re going to spend your money.
Where do you draw the line? Weigh in with your thoughts on the pros and cons of pleather…
