Doesn't "synthetic leather" necessarily mean "vinyl," a material that is not only rarely recycleable, but also produces hormone disruptors, carcinogens, and all sorts of other nasty toxins in both its production AND break-down? Seems like a choice between two evils...

I have a Mercedes, but actually opted for cloth without any reduction of the cost. I might be the only person who prefers cloth. Oh well.

I know this is not PC, but those cows are going to die anyway as the leather is a side process of the meat collection process, not the other way around.
Furthermore like the other reader pointed out all the synthetic alternatives are LESS organic not more organic.

Lastly if you have enough money to buy a Mercedes then you can afford to do a bit of research and get a car that is overall better for the environment and is Peta safe.

(yes I know that Benz does make energy efficient Diesels but they don't use those widely enough in the states, and don't really promote them so it doesn't count.)

This is a difficult choice to make and unfortunately there is little information to make an informed decision on. The bottom line is that both options have a negative environmental impact but which one is worse is difficult to figure out.

Here's some reasons why leather is bad:

http://tinyurl.com/cz4y3

E magazine gives some more and also discusses why PVC is bad:

http://tinyurl.com/dhv9x

PETA's official vote is for PU not PVC which is somewhat better:

http://tinyurl.com/74ddy

As a vegan, this has been an interesting question for me and one I have not found the perfect answer to. Were I to purchase said car (which I would not since it is in and of itself is not as environmentally friendly as a bike.. but no one seemed concerned about that???), I'd probably just get the fabric.

When I became vegan, I kept some leather shoes and belts I had, but I have bought some canvas shoes since then and will buy one of those cool recycled tire/hemp belts (http://tinyurl.com/brdmt) when I need one.

As a cyclist, I won't buy leather. It gets all soaking wet in the rain and then acts as a big sponge. Yuck.

Regardless, leather is never an option for me because I don't think supporting any facet of the animal product industry is a good idea. Each animal product has a negative environmental impact (not to mention an ethical one) merely in the raising of the animals. Supporting one of these products supports others, i.e. the veal industry would not exist without the dairy industry.

Add to that the environmental cost of making leather itself and it would seem that leather is a worse choice.

(an odd aside: asthma cases are prevalent among workers in both leather and PU factories! http://tinyurl.com/a9blj)

And seabasstin, whether or not your statement is PC, it's pretty bleak. You might as well say that you should just go on driving your big SUV for your 2 mile commute and let it idle in the driveway every morning since all that energy is going to be wasted anyways. An environmentalist doesn't just avoid the chance to make positive change just because there's a currently negative situation.

Regardless of the environmental cost of PU or PVC, the cost of leather and animal products is high and one should respond accordingly to this regardless fo what the rest of the world might be doing. If we all stopped demanding animal products, the cows wouldn't "die anyway". And that change starts with each one of us.

Also, I don't know what you mean by organic, but being petrochemical based, PU and PVC are just as chemically organic as leather is. If by organic you mean "more environmentally-friendly," consider the fact that the tanning process basically makes leather non-biodegradable, too. Not to mention the energy costs and chemicals used in processing.

I am seeing a lot of well-circulated myths about leather here... the meat industry really relies significantly upon the sale of leather for sales. it is not a discarded by product, it is a giant money maker for them.
Leather production is also highly toxic and environmentally unsound. not only are toxins like chrome used to preserve skins..most of them are dumped right into local waters..

and we all know what the immeasurable damage from factory farms is doing to the environment.

really, leather isnt humanely or environmentally sound.

I agree with Verionica, and to what she said I'd add that environmental regulations make it so that leather is often produced (can you say "produced" when it comes to chemically treating dead skin?) in poor countries with poor environmental protection, and then shipped back to rich countries.

So basically, to all the rest you add lots of fuel burned for transportation back and forth across long distances.

Please don't buy leather. Cloth is fine.

If some third world countries ate human babies and then shipped their skins off for leather in cars, I would still opt for leather free, regardless of weather or not the skins were in that case "wasted." Just because one person does something sick like murder a living thing then eat it, doesn't make it ok to do something else that's sick with the remainder of the body like skin it and turn it into a seat. It's also true that leather is not environmentally sound anyway as one person posted and the fact that there's a negative situation doesn't mean you shouldn't do your best not to be part of the problem as another person posted. For me, the idea of a living creature's skin (human or otherwise) being used as upholstery is mind bogglingly sick and I flat out refuse to have any part of that. One vote in an election doesn't make a difference, but if everyone stopped voting because of that, the entire election process would cease to work. It's true that one person not buying leather might not actually save the lives of those 15 cows, but as more and more people become vegans and don't buy leather, more and more innocent lives are indeed saved - as the overall demand goes down for leather and other products that required the murdering of living creatures, the number of innocent deaths of those creatures also goes down. The most compassionate thing to do is to remove yourself from the loop of cruelty.