Plastic fibres that pollute our oceans, factories using toxic chemicals, clothes that never decompose: Devotees think they’re saving the planet but we reveal the guilty secret about vegan fashion

Tom Rawstorne investigated how the vegan lifestyle trend is impacting fashion
Experts warn consumers aren't necessarily saving the planet by buying vegan
Animal fur is being replaced with plastic, the alternative for wool is acrylic
Rayon which has been blamed for poisoning workers is used to replace silk
After cow leather, silk is the second most harmful material for the environment
Critics say how items are used needs to be considered as well as production
India Sturgis also explored the extent of real fur being sold as faux fur

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6649637/We-reveal-guilty-secret-vegan-fashion.html

Take fake fur. Last month, the head of a parliamentary inquiry into the fashion industry called for it to be relabelled ‘plastic fur’ to make consumers aware of what they are buying.

‘A lot of big retailers and brands have removed animal fur from their products but simply replaced it with plastics,’ said Mary Creagh, chairwoman of the Commons environmental audit committee.

Made from fossil fuels, not only will fake fur never biodegrade, but it is made of polyester, a plastic-based fabric also commonly used to make fleeces.

Washing the material loosens plastic microfibres, which end up in the world’s oceans.


As for silk — a no-go fabric for vegans because it involves killing silk worms — the cocktail of chemicals used to manufacture rayon, a common alternative, is so toxic it has been blamed for poisoning workers and wiping out waterways globally.

And what about those vegan shoes? Sure, they may contain no leather, but a spokesperson for M&S reveals they are made from a mixture of ‘synthetic materials’ including polyurethane and polyester. In other words, more plastic.

The company says ‘all M&S shoes are designed to last’ and points out that its vegan range contains a ‘proportion’ of recycled materials.

The company added: ‘We encourage our customers to give their footwear a second life through our recycling scheme, Shwopping, which has seen us recycle 30 million items to date.’

There are similar issues with materials used to replace wool. Most of the mainstream replacements are plastic-based, such as acrylic and polyester.

That's the thing I'm wondering about, all my shoes are compressed - recycled cardboard but of course even if they are just that the soles are plastic so I'm contributing to the pollution.
The shoes are very good, comfortable, durable, they shine up ok but are not good when its very wet. I'm not sure where I go from here.
Back to proper rubber and a price hike, v\back to keeping a couple of pairs of expensive shoes for life?

Vintage wrote:That's the thing I'm wondering about, all my shoes are compressed - recycled cardboard but of course even if they are just that the soles are plastic so I'm contributing to the pollution.
The shoes are very good, comfortable, durable, they shine up ok but are not good when its very wet. I'm not sure where I go from here.
Back to proper rubber and a price hike, v\back to keeping a couple of pairs of expensive shoes for life?

Most shoes these days don't have leather soles.

not using cow leather is stupid (not using wool is even more stupid, why do they hate sheep and promote their extinction?)
whether vegans like it or not we are going to kill them to eat.
Personally I am of the same 'opinion' as Native Americans etc, when you kill an animal you should make an effort to use all the resources the loss of it's life provides.

and in some areas (like Australia) it is more environmentally friendly because of the pollution that would be required to get water to the paddock if you wanted to grow human edible plants and not the hardly drought resistant grasses that can be consumed by cows.

veya_victaous wrote:not using cow leather is stupid (not using wool is even more stupid, why do they hate sheep and promote their extinction?)
whether vegans like it or not we are going to kill them to eat.
Personally I am of the same 'opinion' as Native Americans etc, when you kill an animal you should make an effort to use all the resources the loss of it's life provides.

and in some areas (like Australia) it is more environmentally friendly because of the pollution that would be required to get water to the paddock if you wanted to grow human edible plants and not the hardly drought resistant grasses that can be consumed by cows.

100% agree Veya

Please do not faint 

Night everyone

I agree if you kill an animal to eat you should make use of everything.
I just prefer not to kill it. Wool naturally comes off a sheep we've just used the fact and bred sheep to 'improved on it.
Then there's flax for linen, people used these for centuries to cloth themselves but it the same old problem, too many people to sustain with too many things, so we look to science to invent substitutes which as usual cause problems down the line.

Not bashing this story but I would want to check it out and make sure these environmental problems aren't outweighed by the benefits to the environment of a vegan lifestyle.

It's a little like how people started talking about how wind power kills birds, almost to the point that you got the impression they thought birds were immortal before wind turbines were invented.

It just seems that whatever we do...we cannot win.

>THE Ben Reilly< wrote:Not bashing this story but I would want to check it out and make sure these environmental problems aren't outweighed by the benefits to the environment of a vegan lifestyle.

It's a little like how people started talking about how wind power kills birds, almost to the point that you got the impression they thought birds were immortal before wind turbines were  invented.

for food production it is regionally dependent.
almost all our food animals can eat vegetation that we cannot.
So if you can't naturally grow a food crop in an area, farming animals that can live off the vegetation/water that is available in the area is better.
This is why Australia should be farming Kangaroos, they were Aboriginal primary game so have evolved to breed fast enough and they are the native animals so they have basically no environmental impact since they are the natural state for the land.

for clothing etc pretty much all plastics even the 'environmentally friendly' ones are more damaging to the environment than a biological product because they don't break down naturally, the material simply doesn't belong anywhere in the natural world and the natural world hasn't had time to evolve to cope with it. hence the destruction of vast swathes of Ocean life because plastic micro-particles are entering the bottom of the food chain and poisoning everything above them in the chain.
let alone the environmental impact of mining and refining the resources etc

Really if you want 'vegan' clothes the best option is hemp

veya_victaous wrote:not using cow leather is stupid (not using wool is even more stupid, why do they hate sheep and promote their extinction?)
whether vegans like it or not we are going to kill them to eat.
Personally I am of the same 'opinion' as Native Americans etc, when you kill an animal you should make an effort to use all the resources the loss of it's life provides.

and in some areas (like Australia) it is more environmentally friendly because of the pollution that would be required to get water to the paddock if you wanted to grow human edible plants and not the hardly drought resistant grasses that can be consumed by cows.

Simple solution :

Kill more "Vegans"; (not vegetarians, though -- just the "vegans", as they are two seperate identities..).

Then process them through the fertiliser factories -- providing even more organic nutrients to raise more "environmentally friendly" food crops..

Soylent green anyone ?

nicko wrote:
Soylent green anyone ?

That was running through the back of my mind as I was writing my comments !

nicko wrote:Soylent green anyone ?

So long it is made mainly from components of Tommy Monk.