Reasons not to wear leather

1. The transformation from skin to leather by means of dangerous chemicals
Although some leather manufacturers wrongly claim that their products are environmentally or eco-friendly, the transformation from animal skins to leather requires massive quantities of dangerous chemicals such as mineral salts, formaldehyde, (carbon-tar-H) derivatives and various oils, dyes and polishes, some of which are based on cyanide. Most of the leather produced world-wide is tanned with chrome: the environmental authority in the U.S.A. grades all waste-products which contain chrome as being dangerous.

2. Poisonous substances in the waste water of tanneries
The waste water from tanneries contains masses of harmful substances such as salts, lime residue, sulphides and acids.

Tanning stabilizes the collagen and protein fibres in the skins, so that these no longer decompose biologically: in other words do not decay. A chrome tannery squanders over 56,000 litres of water, and, with every ton of tanned skins, produces exactly as much  (Feststoff)“waste” ( for instance, hair, meat and refuse.) The ground water in the vicinity of tanneries exhibited higher levels of lead, cyanide and formaldehyde. The tanning of leather also results in 800,000 tons of chrome  waste every year.

3. Health risks for humans
Leather products, which usually come into direct contact with the skin can contain high ratings of six (valencied(?))  chrome a poisonous chemical and powerful allergen. This can lead to on allergic reaction such as eczema. People who work in tanneries or live in the vicinity of them, suffer from a higher health risk. Many of them die of cancer, caused by the poisonous chemicals of the tanneries. The centre for the control and prevention of illnesses in the U.S.A. discovered that leukaemia under the residents of a region near a tannery in Kentucky occurred 5 times more often than was the national  average.

Arsenic, a chemical often used in tanneries, has long been brought into connection with cancer of the lungs found in the workers who are regularly exposed to this substance. Studies made with tannery-workers in Sweden and Italy showed that the risk of cancer was “between 20% and 25% higher than expected.”

4. Climate killer: Intensive livestock farming
Every new purchase of leather goods contributes considerably to the economic profit of the meat industry and the slaughter-houses, because the skins make out 55-60% of livestock by-products. Meanwhile  it has become known that  intensive livestock farming is one of the main causes for the  environmental problems of today. According to a report from the (UN-World Nutritional Organisation FAO) intensive livestock farming – which is inevitably closely bound up with the leather industry – causes more emissions than world-wide traffic produces.

5. An enormous usages of water
About 70% of developed water resources are appropriated by agricultural farming.

Animal husbandry and intensive livestock farming swallow up a particularly large amount of water. (As an illustration: about 25.000 litres of drinking-water just for 1  kilogramme of meat.) The fodder and sewage from milk factories. The skin of caws from the milk industry “ for which one no longer has any use” is made into leather – contributes considerably to the pollution of water.

6. Leather is explosive matter as far as fossil fuel is concerned.
The “production” of animals uses up enormous amounts of fossil fuel. In contrast, clothing made from synthetic materials only contributes to a fraction of oil consumption. A study  in Bangladesh has found out that the leather industry is more harmful to the invironment than all the textile, medicinal, fertilizer and paper industries put together.

7. Leather is involved in world hunger
On our planet almost 1 billion people – and of these over 100,000 million children, - go hungry. And yet there would be sufficient food for each and every one of them, if only land, water and other resources which could be put to use for the cultivation of food for the people were not, instead, “ squandered” on the cultivation of fodder for intensive livestock farming. In this manner 50% of the world-wide corn harvest and 90% of soya are fed to the economically “useful” animals – above all, in the industrial countries.

8. The import of leather from Asia
Not all the leather articles to be found in Germany come exclusively from Europe.

A large amount of the leather is imported from Asia. Leather, from a country where the growing leather industry counts, perhaps, as the most cruel in the whole world. In Europe more and more processed leather from China is used, where dogs and cats are killed in incredibly cruel ways because of their skins and their fur. Cats’ and  dogs’ skins – simply labelled as “leather” – turn up in the most miscellaneous products. The asian leather industry is subject to hardly any norm as far as the protection of the invironment is concerned.

Why no leather? – NOAH
Information: PETA
Internet: www.peta.org  www.cowsarecool.com/theFacts.asp

Video: www.veganvideo.org