Environmentally speaking - Which is worse? Leather or fake leather?

Question

We were talking about how much energy goes into producing one pound of edible beef in my environmental science class. And with meat, there comes leather. So I was wondering, would buying a leather handbag (for example) be worse (environmentally-speaking)? Or would a handbag made of fake leather be worse? After all, lots of oil goes into plastic production. This is all about our carbon footprint, so nothing about being vegan or vegetarian please.

Answer 1

Considering cows are raised for human consumption, as long as there's no danger in eliminating cows in the future be inadequate breeding, I see no harm in using the cow hide as leather. Like the rest of the cow, no parts should be wasted. Using fake leather just adds to the ever-increasing nonbiodegradable mass.

Answer 2

Buying real leather would be horrible. and ENVIRONMENTALLY speaking, you should buy fake leather.

Answer 3

The processes involved in tanning leather can be fairly low impact, but a lot of it is not. This is in terms of toxins, not carbon footprint.

However, we can have a hemp purse that avoids both sets of downsides.  One might go for hemp with a very light plasticizing coating that is just enough to shed water. We could be cutting the amount of plastic by 90% compared to an all plastic purse. And we might be making the plastic from soy.

Answer 4

Making fake leathers (vinyls) is far more damaging environmentally than producing leather. It also lasts less time and would have to be got rid of at the end of its use whereas leather lasts if looked after.

Leather is a by - product and these days is a much cleaner and more efficient process with lots of chrome and water reclamamtion done as part of the process.  Also most of the additional by-products of the tanning industry are used in other process, make up production etc..