"Leather is the new meat" - Desiree Dupuis, Founder.
I truly believe once people start to be exposed to the environmental impact the leather industry has, more and more people will be looking for alternative options in the fashion industry just like they are doing with their food choices.
Demand on WATER:
It takes approximately 17,100L of water to make 1KG of leather.
72 BILLION ANIMALS ARE SLAUGHTERED EVERY YEAR
- 300,000+ tons of fish are caught each year for cattle feed
- 1/3 of all crop land is required for animal feed
Cattle ranching is the largest driver of Amazon deforestation.
CHROMIUM, SULPHIDE & PESTICIDES
Chromium-tanned leather is the most popular form of producing leather these days, and one of the most noxious. It relies on a toxic slush of Chromium salts and tanning liquor. The leather industry releases large amounts of toxic chemicals and acidic effluents concentrated with heavy metals Chromium, Cadmium, Lead, Arsenic, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Zinc, and Manganese.
As a rule of thumb, tanning one ton of hide typically results in 20 to 80 cubic meters of waste water with Chromium concentrations around 250 mg/L and Sulphide concentrations at roughly 500 mg/L, not to mention the offal effluence from the preparation phase and the pesticides often added to keep mould growth down during transportation to the facility.
70% of an untreated hide is eventually discarded as a solid waste - the hair, fat, meat, sinew, all goes straight into a landfill.
WASTEWATER POLLUTION IS A BY PRODUCT OF THE PREPARATION PHASE, WHEREBY BITS OF FLESH, HAIR, MOULD, EXCREMENT AND OTHER ANIMAL BY-PRODUCTS ARE MIXED INTO WASH WATER AND DISCARDED INTO THE ENVIRONMENT.
Cow-derived leather has almost three times the negative environmental impact as its synthetic counterparts, including polyurethane (PU) leather.
Leather has the greatest impact on eutrophication, a serious ecological problem in which runoff waste creates an overgrowth of plant life in water systems.
