The leather business and market are leading an inhuman activity which is hurting and killing around a billion animals such as ostrich each year for its skins and hides to make shoes and leather bags around the world. Many of these animals are subjected to the whole range of factory farming brutality, beginning with confinement and crowding and progressing to deprivation, castration without anesthetic, branding, tail docking, and, finally, euthanasia. The multibillion-dollar meat industry is more than just selling dead animals.
Byproducts of meat processing include fat and blood, which are used in animal feed, tires, explosives, paints, and cosmetics; organs, which are used in pet food; and heart valves, which are used in medicine. The meatpacking industry usually regards animal skin as a significant commercial byproduct. When milk flow falls, the skin of dairy cows is used to make leather.
They make pricey calfskin from the hides of calves raised for veal. Slaughterhouses and dairy farms benefit economically when leather things sell well. Although leather can be tanned from the skins of sheep, lambs, goats, and pigs, cattle and calf skins account for the largest bulk of leather manufactured and marketed in the United States.
Among the various creatures targeted for their skins are zebras, bison, kangaroos, elephants, crocodiles, alligators, ostriches, lizards, and snakes. Only two of the many exotic species factory farmed for their skins and flesh are alligators and crocodiles. Baby reptiles are frequently housed in above-ground tanks, whereas adult reptiles live in pools that are partially recessed into a concrete flooring. 5 According to state law, a typical Florida home is deemed a lawful enclosure for up to 350 6-foot alligators. Alligators and eggs are commonly poached in that state because of high demand and a lack of oversight.
The Los Angeles Times reported that a Georgia farmer kept 10,000 alligators in four buildings, with hundreds of reptiles crowded in every available area. Injuries and stress are possible as a result of tight quarters. Alligators and crocodiles’ nature and behavior are not adapted to captivity. Even the staff at crocodile farms are not often professionals in the topic, so the reptiles may appear peaceful and satisfied to the untrained eye. Professionals in the field of animal behavior, on the other hand, can detect anxiety.
Despite the fact that some alligator species can live for up to 60 years, farmed alligators are frequently destroyed when they reach 4 to 6 feet in length before the age of 2. Farmers frequently use mallets and axes to kill alligators on their farms, and the animals may be conscious and in great pain for hours afterward as they await skinning.
PETA investigators went to farms in Texas and Africa where alligators and crocodiles were kept in filthy pools and concrete enclosures for months or even years before being murdered for their skins. Animals were skinned while still alive, according to a recent inquiry into Vietnamese crocodile farms. A researcher who observed the massacre on video concluded that the animals were likely conscious and sensitive to stress and suffering for up to two hours afterwards.
Visit PETA.org to discover more about the inhumane conditions in which animals are raised and/or slaughtered for high-end accessories such as purses, belts, and watchbands. Millions of kangaroos are slaughtered each year for their skins, which are typically used to produce soccer shoes. The Australian government orders that hunters shoot the animals, but it also orders that any orphaned joeys or adults found beheaded or bashed forcefully on the head to damage the brain.
After learning about these horrific slaughter methods, David Beckham switched to synthetic shoes in 2006, and Adidas phased out the usage of kangaroo skin in the bulk of its shoes by 2012. Snakes are nailed to trees and skinned from head to tail in some civilizations.
The majority of the time, they are skinned while still aware. According to a PETA Asia investigation into a farm in Vietnam that supplies snakeskin for use in the worldwide leather industry, 17 snakes had their mouths and anuses bound shut with elastic bands before being inflated to death using an air compressor, crushing their heart and causing severe suffering.
Despite the lethal inflation, PETA Asia’s film depicts a writhing snake tail, implying that the pythons are still alive as workers pull off their skin and disembowel them. The investigator observed no one checking vital signs before to the butchery. The snakes were housed in filthy, overcrowded metal cages with insufficient access to food or water. A PETA Asia investigator observed that several of the snakes were infected with mites and inquired about medical treatment; a worker responded, “What’s the use of treating the snakes?” We continue to skin them. For more information on the investigation, go to PETA.org.
Unborn calves and lambs are slaughtered for their skins, as are the hides of pregnant cows and ewes. Hermès, Prada, and other high-end fashion firms acquire their ostrich skins from Africa’s largest ostrich slaughterhouses. PETA members witnessed staff brutally detaining each bird, electrically shocking them, and then slashing their throats before transporting them in open-topped cars to slaughterhouses. The birds’ feathers were pulled from their bodies in seconds, and they were skinned and chopped to bits.
PETA.org has further information about this investigation. Many customers believe that shearling is just shorn wool, but the term refers to a yearling sheep that has only been sheared once. Shearling is a sort of apparel made from the skin of a shorn sheep or lamb just before slaughter. While being tanned, the wool is left on the skin.
Although leather manufacturers may claim that their products are biodegradable and environmentally friendly, the tanning process actually prevents biodegradation by maintaining the collagen or protein fibers in the leather. Animal skin is now processed into finished leather using a number of toxic chemicals, including formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, mineral salts, and a wide range of oils, dyes, and finishes, some of which are based on cyanide, after being air- or salt-dried and tanned with vegetable tannins or oil until the late 1800s.
The great bulk of global manufacturing is chrome-tanned leather. The EPA considers all chromium-containing wastes to be hazardous. Aside from the aforementioned pollutants, tannery wastewater contains substantial amounts of protein, hair, salt, lime sludge, sulfides, and acids. A chrome-tanning operation can generate up to 2,200 pounds of solid waste for every tone of hides treated (including hair, meat, and trimmings). Because of this toxic waste, groundwater near tanneries frequently contains dangerously high concentrations of lead, cyanide, and formaldehyde.
Workers (many of whom are children) in Bangladesh’s leather products business, which exports to the United States, are not expected to live past the age of 50 due to the high danger of chemical exposure and machine disasters. 20 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the rate of leukemia in a Kentucky neighborhood near a tannery is five times the state average. Arsenic is a frequently used chemical in the tanning business, and occupational exposure to it has been related to lung cancer.
Numerous studies have connected tanning bed chromium exposure to an increased risk of developing lung and sinus cancer. In studies of leather tannery workers in Italy and Sweden, cancer rates were found to be 22% to 50% greater than predicted. When animals are grown for food and leather, waste and pollutants are created. Cattle production necessitates vast amounts of fossil fuels:
producing one calorie of beef necessitates around 35 calories of fossil fuel, but producing one calorie of pig necessitates approximately 68 calories of fossil fuel. 24 According to University of Chicago studies, the average American diet (nearly 30% of which comes from animal products) produces approximately 3,300 pounds more carbon dioxide per person per year than a vegan diet with the same number of calories. Massive volumes of water are used to create room for pastureland, and runoff from feedlots and dairy farms is a major contributor to water contamination. According to a California study, individual cows on dairies produce an average of 19.3 pounds of volatile organic compounds per year, making these operations the state’s biggest producer of this smog-forming gas.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, tanneries have shifted from industrialized to developing countries because of the availability of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations. Cotton, linen, rubber, ramie, canvas, and synthetics are just a handful of the many materials that can be used as leather alternatives. Another option is chlorophenol, a perforated cloth used in athletic and hiking footwear due to its lightweight breathability. It has the same flexibility as leather, wraps around the foot for support, and can be washed. Each retail outlet stocks a wide range of synthetic leather replacements. However, low-cost shoe stores and supermarket stores usually have more selections.
We in our company are engaged in trading our leather goods internationally. We have products such as men’s and women’s bags, shoes, and sandals, as well as all kinds of bags, including wallets, handbags, backpacks, and laptop bags in different designs and colors. The leather we use has two types, natural and synthetic, each of which is used with the highest quality material. Our company is currently interacting with many companies internationally and has achieved many successes in this direction. Our goal is customer satisfaction at all stages of the purchase.
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