Leather has long been part of our lives, despite the controversy that arises from its uses; leather is pretty much embedded in practicalities of almost every one of the modern industries. From the fashion catwalks to the factory floors of the heavy industry or our modest/elaborate homes to the white halls of the hospitals, leather you will find is ever present to serve as aid or accessory.
Now although its use is so widespread, you find it alarming to learn how there is only such little awareness about it. Not too certain that’s true? Well then just ask 10 people (at random)the following three questions and you’ll be lucky to find at least 1 among them who can answer all:
- What is leather?
- How is leather made?
- It is obvious that leather isn’t animal friendly but is it environmentally friendly?
Here are the facts:
1. What is leather?
Leather is a material that is made from the hide/skin of an animal, often cattle but also reptile.
2. How is leather made?
- Leather is made by submitting raw hides to the tanning process.
- Raw hide is the product you get when the skins of animals are simply removed of flesh and hair through either
- liming –a process of soaking the skins in an aqueous solution (lime and water) or
- bucking – a process of soaking the skins in the aqueous solution of lye (wood ash) and water
before being scraped over a beam with a dull knife, and left to dry, stretched on a frame so that it dries flat.
- Hide needs to be ‘tanned’ because it is made of animal proteins and if left otherwise, it will naturally go through the putrefaction process (decomposition).
- There are in general two methods of tanning:
- Vegetable Tanning (Tannin)
- Chemical Tanning
- Chrome-tanning
- Aldehyde-tanning
- Synthetic-tanning
- Alum-tanning
- Tanning will convert the raw hides into stable, durable, and versatile natural material called leather.
3. It is obvious that leather isn’t animal friendly but is it environmentally friendly?
- Unknown to many, the in the leather industry, the skin/hide of the animal is the raw material, while the meat is the by-product and not the other way round. This obviously makes it non-animal friendly.
- But what is more unknown is how the leather industry heavily contributes to
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global warming,
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land devastation,
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environmental pollution,
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water supply contamination,and
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the health detriment in both adults and children.
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But what can you expect from an industrial process that heavily employs the use of
- chromium sulfate ,
- chromium salts,
- glutaraldehyde or oxazolidine compounds
- formaldehyde
- aromatic polymers
- aluminium salts
Often enough tanneries are located in the poorer countries like India where regulations are not yet fools proof resulting in the exploitation of labour (children included) who are exposed to these toxic chemicals without the proper safeguards and the contamination of the environment to the harm of its local residents (wildlife inclusive).
Leather, it’s not just about the effect on the animals…it’s also about the effect on the earth.
