We would really like to know where these “cows bred for leather” are. Because, as always, we have no problem with those who develop new (so-called next gen) materials. So, we welcome Imperial College London’s project for a new fabric derived from bacterial cultivation: we await it at the market test (and before industrial scalability). We have problems, however, with rash arguments and incorrect definitions. Just like British researchers and Esquire, which gives them a run for their money, when they suggest that the environmental footprint of purpose-bred cattle weighs on the tanned leather.
The phantasmal “cows bred for leather”
The expression “vegan leather” to define the new material is already a cause for disappointment. As is well known, the so-called Leather Decree prohibits its use in trade because it is deceptive to the consumer (i.e.: because it misleads the customer by suggesting a quality that the product does not have). The reference to the argument so dear to the most archaic animal demagogy (not by chance rode by PETA and Stella McCartney) instead calls for a reaction. It is a devious manipulation of supply chain relations that wants to instil in the public the doubt that leather is responsible for the “waste” of an animal, because it is sacrificed for the purpose.
The opposite is true. Tanning is circular: it harvests and ennobles a waste product of animal husbandry (which raises livestock for meat, milk and wool, in the case of sheeps). We do not say this, Europe also puts it in black and white with EC Regulation 1069/2009. What we would like to ask the researchers at Imperial College London and the editors of Esquire, then, is this: if these cattle farms exist to support the tanning industry, where the hell are they? Try looking for them, you won’t find them.
Photos Shutterstock
Read also:
