External_Lecture_139 t1_irzc366 wrote on October 12, 2022 at 3:58 AM

If your vegan and that’s your hang up I respect that, but there’s sustainability in using byproducts such as leather. The beef industry as problematic as it is isn’t going anywhere soon, and cowhide is a byproduct. Is it not more ethical to use the entire animal if it is harvested?

Geistbar t1_is3j05m wrote on October 13, 2022 at 1:05 AM

> Is it not more ethical to use the entire animal if it is harvested?

It's a tricky question and it comes down to how you evaluate things. For me as a vegetarian, the answer is no. If you find the answer is yes, I'm not gonna stop you.

I am not interested in judging people for their own choices on meat/leather/whatever. Just explaining my own reasoning here.

If there's economic benefit to selling leather from slaughtered animals, that acts to effectively subsidize the act of killing the animals. Or put in other terms, it increases the economic reward for killing a cow or other animal. I don't know what a business expects to get out of it, so I'm just going to toss out an arbitrary number: if all the meat of a cow got the farmer $100, and you add in $10 of leather, that's that much more headroom they have to lower the price of meat to increase demand and then backfill it by getting more cows to end up with even more profit. Alternatively they can just pocket the profit from the leather and keep volume and pricing the same.

Buying leather makes it more profitable to kill the animals the leather came from; making it more profitable to kill animals means more of them will be killed.

When I buy anything now I make a clear point to avoid leather no matter what. I'll pit my sailcloth wallet against any leather wallet people offer for durability!

Faeglantina t1_iszp12u wrote on October 19, 2022 at 9:38 PM

To me, the issue I have isn’t with sailcloth. It’s plastic. I’d rather buy a single pair of leather shoes and have them repaired than buy a pair made with (let’s face it) plastic that don’t last as long and don’t repair as well. Other than athletic shoes, I buy all my shoes secondhand. I just bought a pair of Birkenstocks used to send in and have the footbed and soles replaced. The leather upper is still in good condition, but the cork and vibrant are wrecked. It bothers me when sometimes people are so against just the idea of using animal products that they don’t consider the harm plastics do to wildlife. To me, the most ethical item will always be the one that already exists.

External_Lecture_139 t1_is3jnii wrote on October 13, 2022 at 1:10 AM

How are your sailcloth shoes holding up?

Geistbar t1_is3nzu1 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 1:41 AM

So I give an honest and well intentioned answer to your question with a side remark about a wallet, and you just decide to be a smartass? OK buddy.

External_Lecture_139 t1_is3tsm2 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 2:25 AM

Apologies, it’s my nature. I’m not disparaging your choice to be vegetarian or how you spend your money. But from a BIFL standpoint leather has hundreds if not thousands of years of proven durablity in footwear. Your principles are admirable, those cows are going to be harvested regardless

Geistbar t1_is3u7ni wrote on October 13, 2022 at 2:28 AM

Gotta be honest, it doesn't feel like much of an apology when you just outright ignore the entire purpose of my comment in replying to a question that you asked.

You can disagree with my thoughts, that's perfectly fine. I don't mind at all if people don't agree with me. But you asked a specific question for diving into the ethics of it, and I gave my answer to it. And your response just completely sidesteps that entirely.

Why did you ask the question if you had no interest in the answer?

External_Lecture_139 t1_is3vcfo wrote on October 13, 2022 at 2:37 AM

Agree to disagree I guess. I’m not vegetarian so to me it’s more ethical to use the whole animal. I guess I asked it rhetorically, I started with respecting ops assumed reason assuming we could skip the obvious point a vegetarian/vegan would make for not wanting to wear leather

intra_venus t1_it4wsyr wrote on October 20, 2022 at 11:25 PM

This is right on, opting for "vegan leather" over leather isn't any more ethical. It's greenwashed plastic. Better to look for an alternative to leather that is durable.