9mo ago

Rule

219 comments

I mean we can also make long lasting clothes out of natural fibers without hurting animals.
- Not everywhere. Many places its much more sustainable to make clothes from the animals you are eating and it makes sure that you aren't wasting any of the life you've taken that you need to survive.
  
  Wool is one of those natural fibers that can be harvested without harming the animal. Even if you end up eating the goat/sheep, it can provide a few coats of wool before hand.
  
  You also don't need to eat the animals to survive.
  
  I'm privileged enough to have a choice in that regard, haven't eaten any animals in months. Sometimes I'm a naughty boi and eat some chicken tho.
  Chicken coat get
- You can indeed. But growing cotton has already resulted in environmental changes beyond my comprehension.
  I guess the first step should be to adapt a habit of clothes repair
  
  Growing cattle has also had a massive impact on the environment. And you often need more land for animal based materials because you both need land for the animals and the land to grow food for the animals. With cotton at least you just need land for the cotton.
  
  This. We need to get back to repairable shoes and patching clothes. It's fine to keep a "good set" that doesn't have patches, but we wear clothes like no humans before us. It wasn't uncommon to see patched clothes just 60 years ago.
- Cotton is often grown with large amounts of pesticides and uses enourmous amounts of fibers.
  
  And cow feed is also grown with tons of pesticides and you need much more of it for less tissue at the end.
  I have hard time seeing clothing with a bigger environmental than leather.
  
  But one could also use linen, hemp, ramie/urtica/nettle. However, they are more complicated to process and as the results are textiles, they are not windproof or water repellent.
  
  Organic and recycled cotton is a lot better, and hemp and linen are also pretty good. And if you're worried about hazardous pesticides the majority is used while growing feed for animals.
  
  The tanning process is no joke either.
- Very few materials compare to the durability of animal leather. When you need leather, you need leather.
  
  Even as a cheeky vegan I find it hard to disagree with you on this one. Leather will absolutely last a lifetime if taken care of. I think you can still get close, there's a lot of very durable upholstery fabrics for instance but you're likely making other trade offs.

What do you think most clothes were made out of before polyester? Most people wore cotton, linen, or wool clothes. The first two are from plants, the last one doesn't kill the animal. Hemp was also a major source of textile. Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?
- Nevermind how downright bad leather is for most clothing applications. It's high maintenance, stiff, non-breathing, non-padding and cannot be repaired easily. There's a reason it was only used for specific parts of clothing in specific situations once we had figured out stuff like cotton or wool.
- Wool is more of a byproduct of the lamb meat industry these days, so wool and meat are inextricably entangled. I'm a sheep farmer, last couple years we threw the wool away due to lack of demand. Nobody is raising sheep just for wool.
  However this is a problem with our distorted markets and not with the sheep industry, this valuable fiber is being dumped or burned while we pump out synthetic crap. It costs us more to remove it from the sheep to keep them from overheating, than we can sell it for.
  
  I can't wear wool. It physically hurts and causes a rash. I want to like wool. I want to wear wool. I can appreciate that wool is good. But even cashmere I'd like sandpaper.
  I think we all know what the solution is. We need to genetically engineer a sheep that is 15 times as big with wool 200 times softer the reproduces by laying eggs, and make it so that it produces mostly drone sheep that are able to care for it without human intervention, grooming it attentively and instinctually building large hives out of the coarse wool we currently call wool, so that all we have to do is harvest the total wool to have cuddly soft garments in cute colors.
  
  This is true and also not true. We've thrown away cow hides and sheep skins/wool for lack of demand, but I also know the wool industry and they're not exactly chomping at the bit to get their hands on the garbage wool slaughterhouses (or in our case small/medium farms) produce. There are producers who raised sheep just for high quality wool whose meat you wouldn't really want to eat..
- It's legit when it comes to shoes. Also clothes in colder regions of the world.

Leather doesn't breathe and you don't kill sheep for their wool. What are you talking about?
- And most people wore clothes that came from plants, like cotton and linen. Leather and fur were not for commoners, and are not sustainable compared to plants.
  
  Depends on the region. In cold climates leather was always essencial for commoners.
  
  and are not sustainable compared to plants.
  I don't follow

Nice example of a false equivalency...
- False dichotomy? If so I agree
  
  I think both. But either way, I am fine.
  
  Yes, but we have to embrace false dichotomies, because the only alternative is cannibalism.
  (xkcd 2592)

Last time I checked we didnt have to kill sheep to get their wool to make clothes. Does wool not last as long or did I miss something?
- And we are missing cotton
- https://bitesizevegan.org/is-wool-vegan-is-it-humane/
  
  of course it isnt vegan; veganism is about ethical treatment, not just not killing. mass production of wool doubtless involves tons of cruelty
- itchy :(
- allergies

You don't have to kill animals, though. You can make leather out of plants.
- That's 85 percent plastic
  
  Actually most leather seems to be coated in plastic as well.
  I actually just watched a nice video on vegan leather vs animal leather and comparing the ecological impact (as well as other factors)
  https://youtu.be/x-UGgf7i0qM
- I've relied heavily on gore-tex style rain-proof outerwear for being outdoors in bad weather. Their breathability and water-resistance is miles ahead of dead animal skins.
  
  First off, gore-tex is shit. But, yes, leather is nearly as non-breathable as a plastic bag that's why the traditional use of it is for things like elbow and knee patches, extreme heat protection, such things. Boots, of course. The solution is as always proper layering, not exactly a modern invention: You wear something breathable for warmth, and something non-breathable that you can take off, and has breathing flaps (rain doesn't fall from below), for water protection.
- Do you have experience with those? Especially the breathability to waters resistance ratio is much worse in all plant-based leathers I have tried. Would love to find a good alternative!
- I don't think this post is talking about leather - it does a lot of things well, but "breathing" is not one of them.
- This wasn't about down feathers?

Processed leather generally isn't biodegradable.
- Yes it is. It doesn't take 1000s of years for leather to breakdown
  
  I think they meant the stuff applied to animal skins to make it leather. Can be done cheap and extremely dirty..
  
  That's not the same at all. PLA-printed 3D prints don't take 1000s of years to break down, but they're very clearly not something you add to the composter.
  
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CNQgcBUGD3g&pp=ygURdmVnYW4gbWljIGxlYXRoZXI%3D
- It is though? Sure, you can't just throw it on a compost pile and wait a few weeks for it to rot away. That's why leather is processed (tanned) in the first place, otherwise it would be a pretty useless material.
  But it will biodegrade. In a few years instead of thousands of years like plastics.
  
  It depends on the process. Some processes literally make leather non-biodegradable. I'm not saying that faux leather is any better I'm just saying it's more complicated than people realise. The leather industry could certainly use some improvement.

isnt there this mushroom based fakeleather stuffthingie?
this for example:
https://mylo-unleather.com/material/
ok the animation is kinda gross... if you find fungi gross, but i think these are just fun little guys also, i guess its more of a thing in the future when there is more competition in the market of mycelium based textiles or whatever and prices arent that crazy..
- What the fuck… devilstrand from Rimworld is real??
  
  Your mom is real, she’s nice and did a good job making you
  
  well, i havent tried that stuff myself so cannot speak about their properties, bu~ut looking at the pictures.... did they just glue the stuff on a pair of pants? ._.
- I've looked at some plant based leather alternatives, and most of them mostly contain polyurethane or a similar plastic. Additionally, they tend to be not very durable.
  
  cool, but mushrooms arent plants
- There is a site that sells hand made hats made out of mushroom leather.

Leather is a by-product of dairy and beef production, there is vastly more leather than we use for garments. Most of it gets processed into pet food or makeup or automotive lubricants or who knows what
- You are on the right track. Hides are a byproduct. Nobody kills animals for them.
  Once the hides are turned into leather, they are no longer biodegradable.
  
  Natural leather is absolutely biodegradable.
- This is not true.
  https://bitesizevegan.org/is-leather-a-byproduct-of-the-meat-industry/

JUST BE NAKED
- Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave this library..
  
  It's my constitutional freedom to be naked!

Never understood the leather/fur hate. But I'm also not vegetarian.
- I don’t eat meat but do wear leather. I figure enough people will eat the beef anyways. I also try to buy my leather secondhand and take good care of it. If you treat it right it’ll outlast you.
  
  Leather still can't be beat for footwear, a good shoe/boot will break-in to your foot, it's literally thick skin.
  Leather jackets are basically windproof too.
  
  I believed the same thing, but most leather doesn't actually come from beef cows. There is some by-product of the meat industry but the bulk comes from cows raised specifically for their hide.
- Because it's rational to hate when people kill other living beings just to wear their skin. That's fucking bizarre and grotesque.
  
  It's extremely not bizarre. Their skin is very useful, when prepared right. We've been doing it for about as long as we've been humans.
  
  it’s rational to hate
  https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_Anger
  
  Honestly it just feels weird, but its more rational definitely than killing the same animals and throwing away their skin when you have a use for it.
- Have you tried to understand the hate? The movie Earthlings has a great segment on the leather trade.
- Basically, PETA released a lot of videos about the worst of factory farming and pretended it's common place to skin animals live. Also the oil industry is so heavily subsidised often it's cheaper to get synthetic materials.
- It's supremely bad as a product, the origin doesn't actually matter?
  Smells, stiff, needs constant care, (comparatively) complex to repair, it just has virtually no upsides. It doesn't even last long unless you're comparing really high-quality leather to really low-quality cotton or something like that.
  
  Ive been using a $10 leather belt every day for over 20 years now, zero maintenance or anything done to it.
  
  I own a leather motorcycle jacket I've abused for 20+ years that is none of those things, and it wasn't particularly expensive. I've repaired some loose stitches and rub some leather balm into it twice a year.
  Yes: garbage quality leather is crap, and most of the "fast fashion" items on the market use trash leather. But decent quality leather will last for decades if you put a minimal amount of care into it. It's relatively easy to maintain and repair too.
  
  And that's why it has had no use throughout human history whatsoever. /s
  Do you also have an opinion on timber smelling bad and be completely useless with no upsides?

Will nobody think of the profits?? The sweet sweet short-term profits of somebody else?
/s

yea if you are satisfied having like a pair of shoes or two at most I think it would be fine. But if you want to renew your wardrobe completely every year, then the problem is elsewhere.
- Regardless of material, I hate the mentality of replacing your wardrobe every year. It's just so wasteful.

The cattle industry is horrid. Boycotting or avoiding leather goods is not the lever that will harm the industry. Using leather goods means less waste from the meat industry. Leather items are good
- I'm not vegan, nor am I opposed to leather goods, but this doesn't make sense. You're assuming that leather is strictly a byproduct of the meat industry and given for free to leather suppliers. In reality, they sell the hides. In effect, leather subsidizes meat products by providing the meat industry with extra revenue.
  
  Sure, they sell the hides to the leather industry, but that's just kind of convenient for them to do. If they couldn't sell the hides, they'd still be selling the meat. But the cattle industry could not get by on selling the hides without the meat.
  Leather is simply small potatoes in comparison
- If you disagreed with killing animals for meat to begin with, you'd find this a very bizarre statement. It's like saying we should use human teeth as a building material because it reduces waste from police violence.
  
  That's a pretty good idea, anything that might take a bite out of the tooth fairy monopoly.
  
  I'm looking for change in our systems, but I recognize that the system is far bigger than me or you. I'm not going to lose sleep living in the only system I have access to. But in the meantime, I will bother politicians hoping to change the system that way.

Oh god, don't start wearing more fur. I can barely breath around other humans as it is with all the shit y'all have on.

So...make clothes the old way?

Eewooo eewooo, false dichotomy alarm!!!!

It puts the lotion on the skin...

219 comments