Every year when the first leaves of fall bring back pumpkin spice, sweaters, and apple pie, another recurring fall trend starts appearing in fashion blogs, magazines, and on runways. I am of course talking about leather, that ever-reinvented material of autumn past present, and future. With the explosion of vintage fashion this year, it-girls are stepping out in grunge-inspired motorcycle jackets and western chic cowboy boots, both of which are traditionally made of leather. Last year, leather pants were everywhere. If it’s not pants or boots, it's
handbags, dress shoes, hats, belts, or the classic leather jacket which thanks to iconic pop culture pieces like Grease and The Wild Ones, has been perpetually cool for over 50 years. The classy, durable, adaptable material is so well loved that it must have one drawback, and of course, it does: it’s getting harder and harder to source ethically.
Leather is prized for its durability and flexibility, both qualities it comes by as a result of its animal product base and the tanning process it undergoes. Let’s break down the negative consequences of both of these aspects.
First, no matter how it is justified, leather is the result of slaughtering an animal. While other animals such as snakes, alligators, and pigs are sometimes used, leather is primarily made from cowhide. Cows that are raised for slaughter typically live under terrible conditions with crowding and disease. Because cowhide is usually skinned from cows that will be butchered for meat, leather can be justified as a byproduct of the meat industry; something that would exist even if we made no use of it. This justification, however, rests on shifting tectonic plates. According to the World Preservation Foundation, red meat consumption has fallen 15% over the last 10 years and continues to decline. The leather industry, however, brings in over 80 billion dollars per year, and economists expect it will continue to grow. These market trends introduce a problem as the demand for slaughtered cows is both increasing and decreasing, which will produce one of two likely outcomes: either leather will become more expensive as a decrease in meat consumption leads to a decrease in cow slaughtering, or butchers will start slaughtering cows just for their hides. This second option seems unjustifiable, especially when imagining the waste it will produce. On average, only about 68% of a beef cow is butchered into meat, which means that of a 1200-pound animal (which after chilled weighs about 750 lbs), about 250 pounds are thrown away. If cows were slaughtered only for leather, that waste would more than double per animal. Multiply that by 2.81 million cows, and you have an enormous waste problem.
Unfortunately, slaughtering an animal is only the first step in the process of making leather. In order to stave rot and increase the flexibility of the material, raw animal hide must undergo a process called tanning. Until 1858, vegetable tanning was used, but since the invention of chrome tanning, vegetable tanning makes up only 15% of all leather production. Chrome tanning, which accounts for the other 85%, is a type of tanning that uses chromium salts, which are toxic pollutants. Chrome tanning, though it produces toxic and carcinogenic waste, is preferred to vegetable tanning because it uses significantly less time, taking the product from rawhide to leather in a matter of days, as opposed to vegetable tanning’s weeks-long, more labor-intensive process.
Leather is ethically ambiguous now and will likely become even more unsustainable in the future. If you’re still looking to don a leather jacket or purse this season, there are two main routes for ethical leather, though neither is a perfect solution. One way to get leather without killing an animal is to buy it second-hand. An obvious problem with buying leather secondhand is that leather is known to age well, which means that, unlike other garments, leather garments often become more expensive the older they are, which can make secondhand leather an expensive investment. The other problem is that the demand for second-hand leather is actually growing, which could mean it’s going to become harder for consumers to get their hands on this more sustainable option. So, if new leather is out of the question and second-hand leather is out of your reach or price range, there is still plan C: vegan leather.
Because it is so time-consuming and labor-intensive to produce, inventors have naturally been trying to create fake leather for a lower cost for centuries. Faux leather really took off in the 1920s, however, when it was made for the first time using a combination of rubbers. This easily mass-produced textile was not far from synthetic leathers today, which are mostly made of plastics. Recently, however, critiques have arisen given that cruelty-free “pleather,” like other synthetic textiles made from plastics, is not sustainable to produce and takes a long time to break down. Environmental concerns have led to interesting innovations in the field of leather. Last year, a California biotech company debuted a completely biodegradable plant-based leather made from mushrooms. An Italian textile company invented a material they call vangea, which looks and feels like leather but is made from grape pulp waste produced by wineries.
Leather is hard to rank against its peers. It uses toxic chemicals in its production, but so do a lot of synthetic textiles, and leather, unlike those, actually does biodegrade because it is natural. Of course, it’s only ‘natural’ because it’s produced by the death of an animal. Similarly, its alternatives have benefits and pitfalls to be considered. In the future, will we all be cycling used leather around? Raising cows just for their backs? Or will we all be in synthetic leather or maybe grape leather? Either way, the leather jacket will probably still be cool.
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