Organic Leather: The Company and The Product

I am happy to see this! I love leather and I am all for whole animal use. Some of my friend aren't too happy when I suggest that we eat some parts of certain animals (like pig ears or snouts), but it is important that if we are going to raise animals that we don't waste any useable (and safe) portion of them.

How can you call yourselves treehuggers and promote an image of environmental correctness when you allow an ad for exotic leather on your site?

Kangaroos are our national faunal symbol, but are being shot and killed for meat and leather at an alarming rate.

Shooters go out into the areas where the kangaroos are and shoot them at night while they are blinded by spotlights, male, female, mothers with pouch young and joeys at foot.

The joeys are allowed to be clubbed to death by Government decree.

I am terribly disappointed in this web site, when I was think I had found a fabulous environmental organisation which I could send to all my contacts.

But I will have to campaign against your organisation now.

That is, unless you take action to remove the advertisers of exotic leathers from your web site.

Chrome-free tanning is good regardless of where the tanning waste goes. However, if hair is removed using a srong lye solution (potassium or or sodium hydroxide), as is commonly the case, putting that caustic slurry of hairballs on a field would not be acceptable. Water discharge would result in high oxygen depletion plus the hairy mess. Unless the full scope of hide processing and waste treatment is known, no tannery can be declared benign.

Denise, One of the problems with the world right now, is people threatening each other. Not a course of action that seems to bring out the best in humankind. You may have a point of view to express. Fine. We welcome a diversity of opinion. But please refrain from the aggressive language.

A quick peruse of the mentioned site, and you would see this: "The leather we work with currently comes from three different sources. One of them is certified organic from the UK, and two US sources." Not the countries one normally finds kangaroos hunted by spotlight.

Denise, are you referring to the text ads on this site, like on the left and right of the page?

Those are automatically generated by Google's computers - ie. Treehugger isn't intentionally selecting them for display on their website.

If you're simply link bombing because you saw a post about leather, then obviously you're wasting everyone's time here, as the vendor from the post mentions nothing of kangaroos.

Thanks Robert, for pointing out the possible confusion. I never pay attention to those Google selected ads. They are totally off my radar. But we've had some real doozies attach themselves to some stories in the past.

No problem Warren. The guys incharge of the Treehugger Adsense account (I'm assuming you're not) can actually go in and manually block certain domains from presenting ads.

I imagine things could get pretty hairy around here with those ads, though!

As others have mentioned, Google adsense ads are automatically generated. They don't represent our editorial line at all.

For example, a while ago we had posts very critical of the GM Hummer, and we had Hummer ads (ah, the irony). As far as I'm concerned, nobody here is interested by a Hummer, so the ads didn't do anybody any good.

I just went and blocked most of those ads, but from past experience (when we blocked the Hummer ads), it takes a while for Google to update its settings and the ads to stop showing. Maybe it'll be faster this time.

Can you get rid of the tremendously annoying laughing Exxon dude? I actually have to skip postings which have that image on the side because it is so terribly irritating!

Hi Guys,

Nice to see another player in the organic leather market after a couple of lonely years. ROMP is about to go global. After 3 yrs research the products are industry ready, still fully traceable, and all certified organic by the Soil Association. The difference now is we are in Joint venture with IUV so the scale is very different. Next week we lift 30% of all the certified hides in the UK.

In reference to your article I believe Organic mixed agriculture is the answer to vegitarianism because it provides a better environment for all animals and insects not just the farmed ones.

Also veg tan is not zero impact. There is a BOD and COD and hence a need to deal with the waste water correctly. Our latest Organic tannage OT8, reduces the COD by 60% from our first certified tannage registered in 2003 making it simlilar to the brain or smoke tan items offered. Hopefully the wood used is also sustainably managed. OT8 is therefore far better than any scalable and sustainable offering out there.

Best of luck with the tree hugging. And thanks for featuring us way back when.

Greg
ROMP
X0001

There appears to be a lot of interest in green, organic or eco friendly leather whatever that means? There is also a lot of misconceptions being banded about. Warren's article really concerns me.The majority of leather is tanned with Chrome III and has been for decades not Chrome IV which I assume is meant to be chrome VI. The link in that article to the EPA website gives the facts on Chrome. Chrome is an essential element for life as noted on the site and a naturally occuring mineral. Many assume that vegetable tanning agents are better for the environment.. whats this based upon? Vegetable tanning still changes the collagen structure preventing degradation thats why 1000 year old sandles are still being found today. A manufacturer of vegetable tanned leather can still be one of the most horrendous polluters of the environment.
To improve our world we need arguments based upon fact and people making unsubstantiated claims is largely unhelpful.
Adam