pleather thou?

[the_siobhan]

I was thinking about something totally different tonight, and somehow two things converged in my head, and I started wondering.

How does the carbon footprint of leather shoes compare with those made out of petro-chemicals?

I think this popped up because I was reading about PETA's public statement that one cannot be an environmentalist while consuming animal products and then I started thinking about how I really can't see myself wearing clothes that are made of artificial fibres, and it kind of snowballed from there. Most leather comes from cows which are horrible for the environment. Artificial substitutes are made from a non-renewable resource, but the issue is less about running out of the stuff as it is what kind of mess we make using it.

So what do you think?

Comments

[greylock.livejournal.com]

It depends on the age of the cow.
Something made from a calf would have a lower carbon footprint.
Then you'd have to cast the net pretty wide, looking at the tannery, what it's inputs are in just getting the leather right, and then trasnportation if it's taken to a tailor/bootmaker et al.

It is an interesting thought.

I have no idea what I am wearing half the time.

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered this myself. Plastics don't biodegradabe at all -- every bit of plastic we've created is still with us somewhere on the planet, accd. to all that I've read. Any shoe will wear out at some point & you'll need to dispose of it & replace it. At least if you dispose of a shoe made of leather & fabric, it has a chance to decompose, but shoes made of petro-chemicals don't.

I've been focusing on my garbage production a lot recently bec., whoa, there's a lot of it, but it's something I can consciously make an effort at reducing. If I buy s'thing w/less plastic, I'll have less plastic to throw away, & that's better in the long run.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

t least if you dispose of a shoe made of leather & fabric, it has a chance to decompose

Depends on how you dispose of it. In a landfill, it won't. They have taken 50 year old newspapers out of landfills, and found them still readable. Landfills lock out the O2 necessary for stuff to biodegrade.

I am so frustrated with not being able to buy anything without getting an equal-sized chunk of un-marked plastic and cardboard with it.

Reusing and fixing are important, too. I am not much of a reducer, but I fix things until they can't be fixed anymore, like resewing zippers into my boots for years.

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

That's why I said "a chance." Plastic has no chance wherever you put it. Depending on your specific community's garbage/recycling options, you may be able to put worn-out shoes & the like in places where they can actually decompose.

Shoes are one thing I like to have a few of (pretty!), so I'd rather have many pairs made of leather & fabric than 1-2 of plastics. Then I can wear them till they die & find ways to dispose of them better. Plastic stuffs, no hope ever. Plus, plastic encasing isn't so healthy on the foot -- contributes to icky bacteria, ime, but ymmv.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

That's why I said "a chance."

Yeah, I figured.

I hate plastic shoes, unless there's a really good reason for them, i.e., galoshes.

I suspect that to really get rid of shoes, one would probably need to break them down to their component parts and then do something with those, probably involving shredding. I grew up on a farm, and I can tell you that a leather shoe, left out to the mercy of sun and rain and dogs and bacteria and other Louisiana elements, which are about as harshly varied as you can get, can still be around after 30 or so years. You can't wear it, but it won't go gently into that good night, either.

I'm not really sure what it would take to actually get rid of our post-consumer waste, but even for organic materials, we really need to step it up.

*sigh* This is so depressing.

[silentq.livejournal.com]

The most recent issue of National Geographic Adventure has a Green section that included a blurb about recycling running shoes into thinks like tracks and other sports surfaces:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Grind
They had some other recycled products (backpacks, maybe clothing as well), but my copy is at home, and the online site doesn't have info on this issue yet.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that one one cannot be an environmentalist while consuming ANY mass-produced product.

A home-grown, home-killed, home-skinned, home-tanned boot would have a lower impact than a natural rubber and hemp shoe made in India and shipped to, and across, North America. PETA's argument, while essentially true, is disingenuous or, at least, over-reaching. But as consumers, we don't want to and frankly are not prepared to take back the means and modes of production. We have too much else to do; we have too little knowledge and access to the methods; we have the weight of social acceptance bearing down on us.*

These kinds of black-and-shite arguments (typo intended) make me crazy. At work, I am fighting with people to get them to use porcelain mugs for their coffee, and metal spoons. They have a millions excuses not to use renewable: they don't know where it's been (as if the plastic and paper alternatives were hermetically sealed before they used them); washing things wastes water (because you can compare water usage to landfills SO easily), it's not convenient (even though the receptionist runs the dishwasher for them so they don't have to "waste" time washing their mugs). I have not yet, but will soon, pull out the petro argument: every spoon you throw away takes a little more gasoline from your damn guzzling SUV.

The only TRULY environmental option, at this point, is to kill ourselves, if we want to be that specific about it. PETA can go first (and I say that as a nigh-vegetarian!), I'll watch. Or, we can step back from ridiculous zero-sum games and look at ways to change the entire system, not just the little pieces that please us most to change.

* You should see the looks of horror I get when I tell people that my dreads mean I don't have to wash my hair for 3-4 weeks at a time!

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

At work, I am fighting with people to get them to use porcelain mugs for their coffee

A couple ppl at my office in the "green" group have quoted a variety of studies that say washing reusable coffee mugs saves no more & may waste more resources than using paper cups. I think they're smoking crack, personally.

It's like you can talk out both sides of yr ass & find stats to support it. Nuts. I've been using the same mug for 6 years, 2 coffees a day, dammit, that's a shitload of paper cups not wasted. And I just do it bec. I like my cup better!

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

resources

I think that's our operable word right there. It depends on the resource being used, and not all uses are equal, or equally wasteful.

Utah is looking to go solar in a big way; while solar power isn't free from all harm, I think that the combined footprint of solar power and reusable water has GOT to make less of an impact than the production, transport, and disposal of paper and plastic cups. Of course, we're not there yet with the solar.

My mind boggles at how one could even begin to calculate that, though. (It reminds me a bit of the claims that nuclear energy is emmissions free -- by leaving out any information about emmissions!)

washing reusable coffee mugs saves no more & may waste more resources than using paper cups

I guess I'm also at a loss about "savings" vs. other benefits. Even if buying paper cups costs the same amount as buying the porcelain ones and washing them, in the long run, the landfill "savings" can't be calculated; I'm not sure anyone knows the ultimate cost of that yet. As part of the "green" group at my office, we have tried to avoid any questions of monetary savings. We feel that if we use savings as a benefit now, it may come back to haunt us later if something we want to implement does NOT save any money, or even costs more. We're taking as much of an ethical position as possible. Actually, Utah being full of people with lots of kids, it's not as hard to make the "for your children's children" argument here.

A friend whose house was built on a landfill recently developed severe allergic reactions which, after a year, mysteriously went away when her plumbing had some issues and she had to live elsewhere for a couple of weeks. No one knows why she's sick, what about her place is making her sick, or if it's affecting anyone else, but those are the kinds of "costs" that are probably impossible to track or quantify in any meaningful way.

I don't have any answers. I wish I did.

(I like my cup too. It's huge and purple and has a spider on it. I cracked it the other day and still REFUSE to stop using it.)

[nitoda]

When you finally give up on your cup you can break it into pieces and use them as drainage/protection at the bottom of a plant pot - the pieces help excess water to drain so the roots don't rot while at the same time help keep the soil/compost in the pot. :-)

[deliriumcrow.livejournal.com]

I have, in a few cases (like where the dish was irreplaceable for whatever reason -- like I was poor and had only the one left) superglued dishes back together and kept using them, provided the break was clean enough and I had all the pieces that made a solid edge. And as I've been doing this for years and have not yet died, I think it's safe. Seems to be dishwasher safe, too, given the most recent broken cup ... granted, this time it was only the handle, but several months later it's still attached.

I also maintain that if you're the only person using that cup and it's always being used for the same thing, as long as it isn't solid and full of grossness it really doesn't have to be washed every single time you use it. Once a day, maybe, if you're being fastidious. saves on water *and* on soap. And time. and effort. and time spent without coffee. :)

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

I agree on the not washing, though I'm a bit more extreme. Then again, I'm also drinking tea and chai, not coffee. I only wash my mugs at work once or twice a quarter, usually when I'm washing the algae out of my Brita pitcher. I figure what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, and I haven't been appreciably sick in a year or more. =) They're not growing anything anyway.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Eh. I use dairy in my cup. 1 day later and it already looks like it's going to kill you. :(

But I reuse my water glasses for a week or so. Sometimes longer. And the cup I eat raw oatmeal out of goes for a month or so between washes.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I do that with my water bottle and tea most of the time, but I'm wondering if washing with soap might not be a better idea from now on, given my current problems with my mouth. I may be re-introducing the very bacteria I'm trying to reduce.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

The only TRULY environmental option, at this point, is to kill ourselves

I've made the decision to not have children. Not for purely environmental reasons it has to be said. Still, it's remarkable how few people seem to see that as an environmentally sound choice.

[(Anonymous)]

I read that if every second woman chose to have 1 child instead of two, the population would decrease to 3.6 billion. If everyone has 2 children, the population will stabalize. This is really cool because it means people who want kids can still have them, they just can't be greedy about it. The problem is that there are groups of people who will have rediculous ammounts of children (think 16 to one household) out of religious and political reasons. I have heard some of the on the news say very plainly that they want to outbreed liberals. How's that for fucked up?

Jenn

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm childfree as well, for various ethical and personal reasons.

[(Anonymous)]

My boyfriend is as well. It helps that he really just doesn't like children, though. I think it's cool that a lot of people are coming out and expressing this. To some people, those who choose not to have kids are evil, and they can't wrap their heads around it. They get their panties in a twist, and well, this makes me smile.

Jenn

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

To some people, those who choose not to have kids are evil, and they can't wrap their heads around it.

Tell me about it. I've been called a child-hater, accused of hate speech, and told that I'm no better than a racist or a homophobe.

The kicker is that I don't hate kids or parents or parenthood. Quite the opposite.

[(Anonymous)]

That's horrible. I'm sorry to hear that. Why is it only black/white with some people? Where either your a child bearing kid-lover, or your a childless kid-hater? I don't get it.

Jenn

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Good luck. I can't get people to walk five feet to the recycling bin to discard their aluminium cans.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

We're actually doing pretty well. 9 of the 10 floors are recycling office paper after only a month (the 10th floor has it shredded, so I'm pretty sure they are recycling too); we use a company that actually pays US for the paper, and recycles it into insulation. We didn't recycle for 2 years because the company we had been using was too expensive, and the building manager thought no one cared!

We also have decent response to our plastic and aliminum recylcing bins in the kitchen. We take these home ourselves and put them in our own bins, but people are surprisingly good about it.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

In our lunchroom at work, the recycling bins are *right next to* the garbage can, and people still throw their plastic and their pop cans into the garbage can.

It drives me nuts.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

It's bothered me for a long time as a vegetarian. I avoid leather but I am really not at all sure that I should be

hmm ...

[deliriumcrow.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking this is a severely over simplified argument. Yes, a cow is bad for the environment. So is plastic production, from drilling the oil right on down. And the fact that plastic and rubber shoes wear out at a *much* higher rate. For example, and I'm particularly hard on shoes as I don't drive (partly as a choice, partly because I just don't), synthetic shoes last for me an average of three to six months before I've worn completely through one part or another, unless they're exceptionally well made. Leather shoes tend, with good upkeep, tend to last for several years, especially when the soles are replaced, as those tend to give out first. A leather motorcycle jacket has served me well for eleven years now, with no signs of giving out. My wool coat keeps me warmer than any of the stuffed-up fibrefill and nylon things, or any of the all canvas ones. It also has a decent amount of waterproofing by nature of the fabric itself, without adding chemical to it. Same with the leather. Wool is also *far* warmer than synthetic when wet, again due to the nature of the fibres. They have yet to deveolop anything that is equal to leather and wool for durability and protection from elements (or the road, in the case of leather).

ok, so that got a little off topic. Sorry. point is, without any numbers to back me up, I'm pretty sure the real leather is still superior in terms of durability (and thus reduction of waste, as you add up the piles of plastic shoes that equal the life of one pair of leather shoes and its occasional replaced soles) and production (one cow, used for myriad other things that should also be factored into the equation as it is a very rare cow that equals one pair of boots and nothing else at all, as opposed to the petrochemical production).

But hey, there are always espadrilles. :)

[redbird]

What I think is that this is one for the "reduce" part of reduce, reuse, recycle: that it's better not to buy lots of shoes (or any other artifact) most of which one won't use much.

I'm far from perfect here: along with the few "I'll wear this until it wears out and then get another pair just like it" I have the periodic "maybe this will be the thing other than my walking shoes and flat sandals that actually fits for long periods." None of which really work. And a pair or two of "pretend to be a straight grownup" shoes for job interviews, but at least I keep using the same ones, because I don't think a new pair is likely to be any less uncomfortable. (It doesn't matter how straight I try to look, my extra-wide feet don't fit, or aren't fit by that.)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

The shoes & boots arena is the one area where I am both a girl and a goth. I have far too many. :-p

But having said that I wear my things they wear out and I do mean really really wear all the way out. Then I scavange all the buckles and zippers and buttons off of them.

[excess-and-oohs.livejournal.com]

my gut feeling is that pleather is worse, though tanning chemicals are nasty. i have no biased stats to show you though ;)

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

If avoiding harming animals is a core ethical constraint, then there is no choice and one must use non-animal substitutes.

If one is primarily an environmentalist, one would adopt the technology with the smallest environmental footprint and switch as replacement technologies become viable.

There are multiple efforts to bioengineer plants which can produce precursors to plastic, thus putting plastic in the chain of renewable resources. Bioplastics. Such plants exist, but none yet are economically viable.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

This is not addressing your question, because I have no idea. However, what about leather substitutes that are made from recycled things-that-already-existed? For example, the belt I'm wearing right now as well as the shoes that I wear when I want to look "presentable" are made from recycled tires. There's a huge amount of leather-alike stuff made from things that existed beforehand. I don't know what the carbon footprint of that process is, though -- for all I know they could have to heat the tires to ten thousand degrees for seventeen hours to get them to re-form.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! I have a really cool bag made out of old tires. The buckle is from a seatbelt.

[(Anonymous)]

"one cannot be an environmentalist while consuming animal products" that's a really terrible and arrogant thing for PETA to say. Not only that, but you can't get away with saying something like that in this point in history without being a hypocrite. If your enviromentally conscious, no matter what you do there will always be something you do that contributes to hurting it, usually when your unaware of it.

[individuation.livejournal.com]

obviously the only answer is that we should all make hemp flip flops.

How much energy do you think I drained from the grid answering this question?

I have big footprints.
I am the ugly american when it comes to consumerism.
So really, I have no business answering this question, but I thought it was a good one.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I have hemp sneakers. They rock, they breathe so much better than canvas.

I have big footprints.
I am the ugly american when it comes to consumerism.

How do you feel about that? I'm genuinely curious. I had the impression (correct me if I'm wrong) that you are planning to have kids one day. I tend to assume that tends to make one more conscious of the future.

[individuation.livejournal.com]

How do I feel? Not so good. Unfortunately, I also feel like I don't have a choice.
I want to live in the city - but my job is in the suburbs. I'd take a train, but no train gets into the town I work in until 8am and I start teaching at 7:55am. Ideally, I like to get to work at 6:30am. My commute is my biggest environment killer. I'm worried - I'd like to do better - but for the time being, I'm a little stuck. Once I'm done with my administrative degree I'm going to look for work at schools closer to the city (not in the city because I'm not a masochist and Chicago Public Schools administration is horrendous).

As for kids - I don't know that that's in my future. I want them, but James and I cannot have them naturally together - and I he's not sold on the concept of adoption or any other choices - so yeah, I dunno. But I love my students, and my nephews and neice and I want the world to be good for them...

You know - I guess it's a matter of choosing your battles. I can't fight every fight, but I think I do meaningful work - and right now, that's where I'm trying to make the world a better place.

I'm rambling...so I'm stopping.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I had the same issue when I first started working in Toronto. I couldn't afford to turn down a job as a new graduate with looming student loans. And I wanted to stay in Guelph and try to shore up my crumbling relationship. The only commuter train available would have gotten me downtown about two afters after I was supposed to be starting work. So I bought a car and drove every day.

I did manage to get a car pool going after the first few months though, driving in with two other people who lived in town and worked nearby. Saved me a fortune.

[individuation.livejournal.com]

Yup - tried that too, but because high school teachers schedules are so different - it's hard to find someone who wants to work the same hours as you.

I'm always one of the first teachers at the school, and Monday after school (at school) I have grad classes, Wednesday after school my literary magazine group meets, and Thursdays the mock congress group that I run meets.

It's just not really feasible. There are a bunch of teachers who live in the same neighborhood as me - but our schedules are just too different.

[jin-aili.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting question. I've been vegetarian for over 6 years now, and I haven't stopped buying leather shoes. To be honest, it's mainly because I'm too lazy to think really hard about the issue. But my excuse is this: until they start raising and killing cows just for their leather, and not for their meat, which means that leather is a by-product that would go to waste if not made into useful things, I don't consider buying leather things to be subject to the same rules as eating meat. I'd rather that if we're going to kill the animals anyway, we use up as much of the body as possible.

A friend of mine who makes soap asked a related question a while back about soaps that contain tallow, which is beef fat, and whether vegetarians would be bothered, and I had the same answer.

[eciklb.livejournal.com]

I'm curious - does your stance on byproducts extend to food? I.e., do you consume gelatin?

[jin-aili.livejournal.com]

yes, I do take the same position on things like gelatin and rennet, although if I spent more energy to really understand how they are produced, it is possible I might have to change my mind. But I'm lazy!

[benton.livejournal.com]

The only useful argument being that leather/wool is more generally more durable than plastics. I've had leather boots live for a year with the heavy, heavy walking I do, whereas in most cases I'll burn through a set of synthetic sneakers in a season or two. I never resoled my boots, however... by the time it would have really benefited from a resole, the integrity of the boot had been compromised elsewhere.

I have found a brand of sneakers that I do like though that lasts me a long time and is non-slip as well.

I don't consider myself an environmentalist at all. I consider myself more of thrifty Yankee. It is fine to spend money on quality goods, as long as you get good use of them. Its foolish to throw away the plastic and paper bags that you get from the supermarket because they make perfectly good small purpose bags or trash bags or incubators for ripening fruit. You turn the dish washing soap bottle upside down when it is almost gone and use that last dollop because while the dish washing soap is relatively inexpensive, why be wasteful when you can put forth a little effort?

Similarly, there is a demand for meat, so people are going to slaughter cattle anyway. The leather is a byproduct of this, so I think that someone in good conscience, even if they were opposed to the use of animals for food could still use leather because its a waste product. Its like using a comb made of bone.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Dude! I haven't seen you around in ages. How you been?

[benton.livejournal.com]

I'm fine. I'll be making an omnibus posting sooner or later to update on the goings on of the last couple of years once I find the words.