I recently wrote about the evils of fur, but I sense that this post might be slightly less of an easy sell… while I think/hope most readers will already be on board with boycotting fur, what about other kinds of animal skin? Since I went vegan I haven’t bought wool or leather because it would be hypocritical of me to refuse to consume animal products as food but continue to wear them as clothes, thus giving money to the same industries I very vocally reproach. But what if you’re not vegan and you already eat animal products – why not also use their skin? What’s the harm if they’re being killed anyway? Animal materials such as leather, suede, merino, cashmere, sheep skin and even angora wool are still widely accepted by consumers, largely because people assume that they’re by-products of the meat industry: if the animal has to die anyway, why not use every part of it, rather than letting it go to waste? I thought the same thing (even while I was vegetarian, weirdly) and if you eat meat, I can see the logic of this argument. So why is it problematic?
Let’s start with leather. The global leather industry slaughters more than a billion animals every year specifically for leather. Not as a by-product of the food industry – this is a separate operation. The world’s cattle population has been increasing steadily since 2015 and now stands at more than 1 billion cows; the leather industry is a huge contributor. Valued at $93.2 billion in 2016, the industry is expected to grow to $121.16 billion by 2022. The US cattle sector sells $3 billion in hides, in exports alone, each year from the 35 million cattle in American slaughterhouses. It is projected that the industry needs to slaughter 430m cows annually by 2025 to sustain demand for leather products. Most leather goes to shoes, but also furniture and care seats, and accessories. The main problem is that we buy leather goods without knowing where the skin comes from or what conditions the animals were kept in. Nearly half of the global leather trade is carried out in developing countries (from Ethiopia, Cambodia and Vietnam to India and China) where there are few animal welfare laws, and animals are often skinned or boiled alive: the process of turning skin into leather can be horrendously cruel. Leather can comes from any animal, not just cows, pigs and sheep – we’re talking rabbits, foxes, kangaroos, reptiles…. because we import so much of our leather from India and China, it’s often hard to be sure what animal skin has been used. In China, an estimated 2 million cats and dogs are killed annually for leather. When we see an “Italian leather” stamp, for instance, this often simply means that the skin was imported and finished in Italy. PETA’s Jason Baker states that “there is no such thing as humane leather. No matter where it comes from, leather is the product of a cruel industry”. Many animals are slaughtered very young to make bags and shoes, having spent the entirety of their short lives in confinement.
Getty image of men struggling to control a cow at a cattle market in Dhaka, Bangladesh
For those environmentalists among us (aren’t we all?) it’s important to be aware that leather is extremely polluting. Tanning, the process which stops leather biodegrading, requires many chemicals, leaving an enormous carbon footprint and causing environmental pollution. Toxic compounds including zinc, lead, dyes and cyanides used in leather production don’t disintegrate easily, and these chemicals filter into the groundwater around tanneries and eventually into our rivers and lakes where it causes skin problems and disease for humans and kills wildlife. Moreover, the leather industry means cruel conditions for humans as well as animals. Workers in Bangladesh, including children, perform hazardous tasks such as soaking hides in toxic chemicals and using knives to cut the skins.
The joy of switching to faux leather is that it’s largely much cheaper than the real deal. While I don’t necessarily endorse cheap synthetic alternatives (see Becky’s excellent A Life Loved posts on sustainable shopping), shops like New Look, Primark and H&M stock a ton of faux-leather shoes and bags. If you are shopping for shoes on the high street, you can check the composition of the product online or the sticky label on the bottom of shoes:
Image via EthicalElephant (amazing resource for cruelty-free fashion and beauty)
Of course, these cheap high street leather alternatives like PVC might be cruelty-free but they aren’t generally environmentally friendly. For those looking for a double-whammy of feelgood purchasing, check out plant-based leather alternatives like Cotton-backed Microfibre PU (Polyurethane) (a microfibre very similar to natural leather and suede), Bio-Polyoils (zero CO2 emissions) and Piñatex (pineapple leaf fibres!) There are an increasing number of great vegan leather brands who sell ethical, sustainable alternatives (Matt and Nat and The Lovely Things for bags, Votch for vegan leather watches, and Free People for shoes and jackets are some of my favourites). I also love online thrifting via apps like Depop, eBay and Vestiaire Collective – dramatically reduced prices, conversation with an actual person, and none of the trauma of rifling through rails of Hawaiian shirts at Beyond Retro. I’ve found some incredible items on Depop in particular, and used the app to sell my leather items and donate the money to animal charities.
Who wouldn’t agree that recycling another human’s cast-off is a more rewarding way to avoid waste than re-wearing an animal’s skin?
Merino wool sheep waiting for auction in Australia. Image by Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
Which brings me to the final frontier of giving up animal products in fashion: wool. I’m not going to lie, giving up wool in winter is a total pain in the arse. So many coats and sweaters have some percentage of wool or mohair, even the cheapest ones. I’ve actually always been slightly allergic so I’m used to being that person checking the inner label of every single jumper, and I’ve definitely had to let some good ones go. But for me, it’s worth it, mainly for the same reasons that I don’t wear leather – I don’t think sheep should be in captivity in the first place. There are other arguments for not wearing wool too though.
Sheep auction in Australia, by Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
Wool can of course be sheared without harming the sheep. Where sheep are farmed, they need to be sheared; it’s healthy for them and, environmentally, it’s a sustainable clothing source – it has a relatively low environmental impact. This does not mean that all wool is equal. Wool from small, high welfare farms is probably going to be okay (buying a Shetland wool jumper would be a sustainable, ethical option, and would support small local communities). But on large intensive farms, shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, which encourages fast work without regard for the welfare of the sheep, leading to frequent injuries. We all know how much it hurts to cut yourself shaving; now multiply that pain tenfold and imagine someone ripping off strips of your skin. We should also be aware that more than 50 percent of the world’s Merino wool comes from Australia, where many lambs are forced to endure a gruesome procedure called ‘mulesing’ in which strips of wool-bearing skin are ripped from the animals’ backsides, often without any painkillers. Mulesing is a common practice in Australia to prevent flystrike (the wool around the buttocks can retain faeces and urine, which attracts flies). The scar tissue that grows over the wound does not grow wool, so is less likely to attract these flies. Highly wrinkled Merino sheep are particularly susceptible to flystrike so almost all this breed are subjected to mulesing. Many lambs also have their tails are chopped off, and the males may be castrated without any painkillers. Every year, hundreds of lambs die before the age of 8 weeks from exposure or starvation. So, in a nutshell, checking the origin of your jumper is really important.
Sheep loaded onto transport at auction in Australia. The sheep are crowded together, experiencing high levels of stress, and some break their legs and necks while trying to escape. Image by Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
Unwanted Australian sheep are shipped to the Middle East on crowded multilevel ships (see images above) for slaughter.
Cruel practices in Australia isn’t the only problem with wool. A few years ago ASOS, Marks and Spencer, Next and H&M pulled their angora products after a video exposing the cruelty that angora rabbits suffer went viral. The video showed workers in Chinese factories ripping the fur from the bodies of screaming rabbits – and China is responsible for 90 per cent of the world’s angora wool supply. Workers often pluck rather than shear the fur because the longer, plucked hair sells for more than double the £22-£28 per kilogram that cut hair fetches. Angora doesn’t have to be taken this way: it can be collected naturally, as the rabbit molts. However, these small scale, humane angora producers are still in the minority.
Angora bunnies
Finally, sometimes an item of animal-derived clothing being a ‘by-product of the food industry’ is actually a really bad thing – in the case of goose down, for instance. Before 2012, almost all high street down jackets and sleeping bags (including The North Face) took their feathers from geese kept on intensive farms, artificially fattened by forcing boiled corn mash down their throats via funnels, using a pressurised air hose. PETA recently renewed their anti-down campaign, and claimed not much has changed. What if your padded jacket is still a by-product of foie gras? And even worse, what if it’s not? The highest grade of down, used to make the most comfy and costly coats and bedding, involves a practice called live-plucking. That’s exactly what it sounds like: the feathers and the undercoating of geese and ducks are pulled off their skin while they are still alive. 80 per cent of global down comes from China, where live-plucking is still something openly done. In 2016 PETA eye witnesses found live geese being plucked on farms linked to so-called responsible down suppliers. The geese are held down by their necks, while farm workers pull the feathers and undercoating off of their skin, leaving open and often bloody wounds in the process. That goose down pillow feeling less comfortable? There is a way to try to source ethical down: this website that lists Responsible Down Certified (RDC) companies. Ultimately though, unless you’re hiking in the Alps you probably don’t need a down jacket (and really good synthetic versions exist for a fraction of the price tag). And you definitely don’t need down in your pillows.
Rescued goose, Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
Clothes have always made me feel good. I love fashion and I take as many (more?) outfit selfies as the next person. But the only animal you’ll see in my #mirrorselfie is my photobombing dog: no living being should have to suffer for my vanity. By ditching the animal products in my wardrobe, I can get dressed every day with a clear conscience – and nothing feels better than that.
