Luxury for some, misery for most!

Every year, more than a billion animals and tans their skins and hides are slaughtered for leather. Many of these animals endure all the horrors of factory farming—including extreme crowding and confinement, starvation—as well as cruel treatment during transport and slaughter. Even if a product says that it was made in Italy or the U.S., the raw materials probably came from India or China.

Most leather produced and sold are made from the skins of cattle and calves, but leather is also made from sheep, lambs, goats, and pigs. Other species are hunted and killed specifically for their skins, including zebras, bison, kangaroos, elephants, crocodiles, alligators, ostriches, lizards, and snakes. In China, even dogs and cats are killed for their skin which is branded as “leather”.

When the milk production of cows in the dairy industry declines, their skin is made into leather. The economic success of slaughterhouses and dairy farms is directly linked to the sale of leather goods. Although alligators can live for more than 50 years, farmed alligators are usually butchered for their skin before the age of 2, as soon as they reach 4 to 6 feet in length. Alligators on farms may be beaten to death with axes, sometimes remaining conscious and in agony for hours after they’re skinned. Millions of kangaroos are slaughtered every year, and their skins are often used for football shoes. Snakes are skinned alive because of a myth that live skinning makes exotic leather more supple.

The animal cruelty for leather not only affects animals, but also humans. Turning animal skin into leather requires the use of dangerous chemicals including mineral salts, formaldehyde, and coal-tar derivatives. There are higher chances (between 20 and 50 per cent) for leather-tannery workers to suffer from leukaemia, cancer, etc. The white foam and pungent stink you see and smell in lakes and rivers are probably the leather wastes and residuals that have been dumped into the water bodies. These toxins not only contaminate the river but also seep in and pollute the soil and groundwater. People who depend on these water bodies for drinking, washing clothes, irrigation, especially in rural areas, are adversely affected.

The tannery owners agree that the ecological crisis has to be worked on immediately, but that cannot come at the cost of their livelihood. The manual labourers say that despite the stink and the health hazards, they can't afford to lose their only income. However, environmental activists disagree with the tannery owners. It is not as tricky as it sounds. The choice is clear, they cannot function at the cost of environmental degradation and health hazards for the entire population of both animals and humans.

There are many alternatives to leather, including cotton, linen, rubber, ramie, canvas, and synthetics. There are products made from alternatives of leather, including faux leather, cork leather, microfiber, ocean leather (made from kelp, a type of large seaweed), vinyl or PVC, etc. Moreover, a sustainable solution to the environmental issues and animal cruelty must be arrived at, for which a collaborative approach must be taken by NGOs, tannery owners, companies, government organizations, etc.