Today, our demand for animal meat far exceeds our demand for animal leather, thus animal leather is a naturally occurring byproduct that, I personally believe we should avoid wasting in order to honor the entire animal.

When consumers opt for vegan leather (traditionally and most commonly made out of plastic) they are choosing a much less sustainable option. Even if you choose to be vegan as a lifestyle, which I highly recommend and commend, it is critical to consider the fact that choosing a plastic based product is far more harmful to all animal and human life than using a naturally occurring by-product of an animal that was going to be slaughtered for food anyway.

Plastic based “vegan leather” is one of many textiles made from petroleum that is responsible for the micro plastic pollution problem. Micro plastics breakaway from their bigger plastic structure overtime and leach into everything including the human body.

So what about the plant based vegan leathers that you see cropping up, such as pinatex made from pineapples.

“Piñatex® is one of those rare products of design thinking that hits all the sustainability buttons at once: it is a material that is completely cradle to cradle, it substitutes leather that has a very heavy environmental and welfare impact, and it brings new income streams to subsistence farmers, allowing them to fully utilise their crops. The implementation of Piñatex® will have far-reaching societal and environmental benefits.”

— CLARE BRASSDIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT 22

What Clare fails to mention in this quote is the fine print found on the pinatex website which points out that even pineapple based leather has to be coated in a synthetic plastic based material to hold up.

Many scientists are fast at work trying to find a plant based alternative to animal leather but so far are not seeing much success.

However, if avoiding animal leather is a must, buy animal leather second hand or hold out for the future of plant based leathers but please avoid toxic plastic vegan leather in the meantime.

And finally, because we never said this was simple, please be on the lookout for animal leather that is dyed without the use of harsh toxic dyes, opting for a vegetable tanned leather instead.

Supporting Research for Continued Learning

More on Micro Plastics here

More on Animal Leather as a byproduct

More on why alternatives to animal leather are not ready yet