Vegetarian Belts from Truth
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04. 3.06
If you want to dress vegan, what better place to shop than vegetarianbelts.com. a site devoted to belts and handbags with no leather. It all comes from Truth Belts, voted the best leather replacement company in North America in 2003 in PETA'S proggy awards. Designer Renia Pruchnicki started making belts in her apartment in 2001 and has not looked back. She hopes that "Truth will encourage others to live their dreams. Wouldn't the world be a much better place if everyone told the truth?" Buy online at ::VegetarianBelts ; cooler site at ::Truth; found by Emma at ::One of a Kind
I'm just curious if anyone has any thoughts on the environmental weight of wearing faux leather goods made from fossil fuels vs. wearing leather. I've tried to think about lifespan/repairability of the product (leather shoes are usually higher quality, and easier to repair), energy use in making the product, and decomposition when the product is worn out. I'm not clear if leather comes from the beef industry or is an entirely different cattle industry.
Coupla comments:
1. I've been buying only non-leather alternatives since 1989 and frankly have noticed NO degradation in product life span vs leather. I've had some of my non-leather shoes for as long as a decade.
2. Lots of people have looked at comparingthe environmental impact of leather vs. vinyl. (Of, course a LOT of my vegan accessories are fabric or fiber, not vinyl.) Leather production has become a quite pollutive activity itself. The simplest reference I found was here:
http://unreasonable.org/node/9#enviro
3. It wouldn't matter much to me where the leather came from: dairy cow, beef cow, sheepskin, ostrich, alligator. What distinction would you draw?