The animal industry wastes land and causes global warming
It pumps gas into the atmosphere & slurry into rivers
This is the environmental reason for boycotting the animal
industry, and for making this boycott more fashionable and more
likely to be copied around the world More vegetarians fit on
the planet than meat eaters or leather-wearers, and as concern
grows about how we are all going to fit, with greenhouse gasses
and growing deserts caused by over-farming, environmental reasons
for going vegan become more common When this web site was first
written, famine was in the news and there was a link to the Vegfam leaflet
that makes the case Now that global warming is in the news
most weeks, One
of Animal Aid's Fact files covers it and the Vegan Society
has a 16 page colour download called "Eating
the Earth" Even the UK Government Central
Office of Information suggests buying less animal products
The animal industry is cruel:
The rest of this page is much-adapted from an old information
sheet by the Vegan Society
- their
current pdf download is here It gives examples of
cruelty and answers some of the common points people make about
why they wear leather Reasons for boycotting each specific animal
product are listed by Petaorg
(the page is http://www.petaorg/living/clothingguide-introasp),
while the Vegetarian
Society has a similar page about clothing
by-product?
- biodegradable? exotic
leathers - pollution - excessive
calving - animal suffering
- lameness - mastitis
- transport - slaughter
- disease & money - synthetics available - fur
fashions - fur facts
Leather &
the 'By-Product' Myth
Vegetarians boycott the animal industry and vote with their wallets
to have less cruelty and waste in the world Leather might make
half a slaughterhouse's profit and it's good to try and boycott
some of that half as well as the meat half We do not have clear
figures for the amount of money that companies make from meat
or hides, because they do not need to tell their shareholders
Money-in is money-in, whether it is from selling a hide to a
tanner or some flesh to a butcher Typically, hydes are bought
from smaller Indian or Chinese tanneries by local factories that
make shoe uppers - even if the shoe itself is made in the UK
Exploding
the 'Bio-Degradable' Myth
Most of us are more emotionally attached to our leather shoes,
wallets, jackets, trousers & underpants than we are to the
plastic items like squeezy bottles and drink bottles that we
buy every day This attachment makes us more careful in our purchases
Words like "craft" and "natural" might go
through our heads without much thought, or perhaps with the thought
that a bio-degradable object is a nicer thing to buy occasionally
and own for a long time But if our leather gear rotted as fast
as normal meat we would all be very smelly by the end of the
week
The leather we buy in the shops has been treated with a process
called chrome tanning to make it last as long as possible and
remain as flexible as possible Archeologists in Northern Germany
have found 12,000 old or leather artifacts Your nearest museum
may have leather objects from the Neolithic or Bronze ages
The
animal welfare myth
Animal welfare laws exist to some extent in the UK, but the shoes
you buy are no longer made here DMs moved their leather cutting
and sewing operations to Thailand in the 80s with moulding and
sole-sewing going to China in 2005 DB shoes and Loake were forced
to move their upper manufacture to Madras Clarks trainers are
made in Romania, most of their UK factories are closed and the
original one in street is mainly a shopping mall for factory
shops Many trainer designs are specifically designed to promote
a fashion for shoes with lot of fiddley sewing and assembly,
so that European manufacturers cannot compete None of the countries
- Vietnam, Thailand, India - where shoe uppers are now made can
afford to make animal welfare a priority, even if their traditions,
such as Buddhism, do
Even the laws that exist in the third world - for example
to protect endangered species - are easy to break There is a
trade in hides from zebras, bison, water buffaloes, boars, deer,
kangaroos, alligators, elephants, eels, sharks, dolphins, seals,
walruses, frogs, crocodiles, lizards & snakes Thousands of
endangered olive Ridley sea turtles are captured and killed illegally
in Mexico, solely for their skins It is estimated that 25-30%
of US imported crocodile shoe leather and other wildlife items
are made from endangered illegally poached animals This trade
is a measure of how little people can enforce animal protection
laws of any kind in the countries where leather is made
Leather pollutes
(see the Eating
the Earth pdf booklet)
The amount of waste and pollution generated by the leather manufacturing
industry is phenomenal The stench from a tannery is overwhelming
Not only do they pollute the air, however, they also pollute
the rest of the environment with the use of a multitude of harsh
toxic chemicals One estimate puts the potential cost of an effluent
treatment plant in a tannery at 30% of the total outlay
Substances used in the manufacture of leather include: lime,
sodium sulphate solution, emulsifiers, non-solvent de-greasing
agents, salt, formic acid, sulphuric acid, chromium sulphate
salts, lead, zinc, formaldehyde, fats, alcohol, sodium bicarbonate,
dyes, resin binders, waxes, coal tar derivatives and cyanide-based
finishes Tannery effluent also contains large amounts of other
pollutants such as proteins, hair and salt
The leather industry also uses a tremendous amount of energy
In fact on the basis of quantity of energy consumed per unit
produced, the leather-manufacturing industry would be categorised
alongside the paper, steel, cement and petroleum manufacturing
industries as a gross consumer of energy
Going back to the beginning of the chain of events that ends
up with a leather product, we find environmental problems already
very evident Farms that breed animals are themselves an environmental
problem Cattle belch and fart methane, which is produced during
fermentation in their guts A typical animal emits 48 kg of methane
a year, with more bubbling out of its manure Nearly half of the
European Union's methane comes from ruminant digestion and manure
Commercial dairy farming is not synonymous with environmentally
acceptable practice Dairy farms are often specialist units with
high inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus - both as fertilisers
and purchased feeds Stocking rates are high, there is often no
arable land on which to use slurry and dirty water, and many
units also grow maize which can cause high losses of nitrogen
and phosphorus through leaching, run-off and erosion
Cows averaging 35 litres of milk a day can require up to 100
litres of drinking water a day This requirement will increase
in hot conditions
Beef farming makes other indirect contributions to the greenhouse
effect For instance, fossil fuels are burnt to generate the energy
to produce fertiliser that feed the fodder crops on which many
animals feed Rearing beef is also land-intensive with some 340,000
hectares of British farmland devoted to growing feed for beef
cattle, and beef cattle pastures take up more than a million
hectares If some of this land was planted with trees instead,
these would soak up CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow
The Wildlife Trusts report Crisis in the Hills demonstrates
that bio-diversity in the uplands is literally being eaten away
by sheep farming About 70% of heather moorland in England and
Wales is at risk and half of upland breeding birds in decline
Case studies have been gathered from major upland areas in the
UK highlighting that the loss of bio-diversity has reached national
unacceptable levels
Excessive
calving
Like the diary industry, the tanning industry relies on shortening
the life cycle of animals Just as a cow produces most milk when
it has plenty of young calves, so the value of the leather is
often higher when it is from a slaughtered young animal There
is a logical link between avoiding veal (which many meat eaters
do out of sympathy for the young calves) and avoiding the smooth,
fine, unblemished animal skin that a calf produces The leather
from older animals that you see living quietly in fields is more
likely to be scratched, parasite-marked for example by ringworm,
or contaminated by dung Particularly if it comes from mature
males, it is likely to be harder and less stretchy
Leather
= Animal Suffering
The animal farming industries produce the leather that manufacturing
industries use Animals begin by being bred in intensive, semi-intensive
or extensive systems In other words they may be factory farmed
as in the case of veal calves (veal crates are banned in this
country but calves are still raised for veal indoors in groups)
or animals such as sheep may be farmed extensively in hilly upland
areas where they are more or less left to their own devices suffering
extremes of weather, disease and a lack of adequate food Even
the gentle dairy cows that are often admired casually grazing
the British countryside during the summer, are housed for 6 months
throughout the winter Some dairy cows are housed all year round
Both cattle and sheep suffer from a variety of health problems
and undergo a variety of painful procedures depending on their
species and sex eg castration, ear-tagging, tail-docking, artificial
insemination, laparoscopy or embryo However one thing they do
have in common is the pain of lameness and mastitis
Lameness
Surveys of cases of lameness in dairy cows treated by veterinary
surgeons indicate an average annual incidence of about 4-6% When
cases treated by the farmer are included the annual incidence
appears to be about 25%!" Lameness is a major health and
welfare problem in all sheep producing countries It is generally
regarded as the greatest cause of pain and discomfort in sheep
Farmers Weekly writes in February 1997 that lame sheep were found
in 92% of flocks covered by a Royal Veterinary College survey
relating to 758,252 ewes and 427,277 lambs
Mastitis
Mastitis is a very painful bacterial infection of the udder of
the cow which causes inflammation and swelling The udder becomes
hard and hot with an abnormal discharge In the recently calved
cow the milk is thick, creamy and smells foul The cow is often
lame in one or both hind legs with swollen joints Body temperature
can be high and in some cases pregnant cows will abort or produce
a stunted calf Around 4 out of ten cows are affected each year
in Britain
Sheep suffer similarly In really acute cases the ewe will
have a raised temperature and the udder may start to turn a very
dark colour as gangrene sets in If this occurs, the whole or
part of the udder can eventually slough off In extreme cases,
the ewe will rapidly die of septicaemia Mild mastitis in sheep
will result in permanent damage to the udder, usually in the
form of abscesses, and ewes are often culled as a result Treating
mastitis in ewes is rarely successful and a three-year survey
of over 30,000 lowland ewes found about 5% were affected Subclinical
mastitis is almost impossible to detect but with up to 12% of
ewes affected at some stage in lactation
Transport
Problems associated with transport include fear and pain associated
with handling and mixing animals; thermal and motion stress;
hunger, thirst and exhaustion; and risks of infection In September
1996, 240 sheep were killed in a crash travelling from Britain
to Spain via France The remaining 520 were killed in French slaughterhouses
Two days later a further 300 sheep died in another crash Throughout
the 90s, smaller slaughterhouses have tended to close in the
UK and animals have been taken on ever longer journeys to the
larger operators which supermarkets prefer to buy from Farmers
are in a weak negotiating position when they sell to supermarkets
and have to transport their livestock wherever they are asked
The best-known example is Tesco supermarket which uses the St Meryn
slaughterhouse in Cornwall A quick
web search
site map will come-up with documents that show how
common this practice is, and how far those lorries which you
see on motorways are going
Slaughter
Sheep are very vulnerable to stress during drawing out (selecting)
for slaughter, loading and transporting to the slaughterhouse
In fact most of the stress on the day of slaughter is often associated
with handling, transport and time in the knacker's yard, or lairage
These problems become more intense for animals that are unadapted
to handling Sheep are usually slaughtered by electrical stunning
followed by throat cutting Stunning, however, may not be very
effective and sheep might regain consciousness when they have
their throats slit or while blood is being drained from their
body
The same with cattle; much distress suffered on the day of
slaughter is caused by transportation and lairage (holding animals
just before slaughter) Smaller animals like calves are usually
herded into open pens in groups and electrical stunning used
Captive bolt stunning is commonly used for larger animals such
as cattle It is a bolt, propelled by a blank
ridge or compressed air,
that penetrates the skull and destroys part of the brain The
government's advisory body the Farm
Animal Welfare Council have been concerned at the inadequacy
of the stunning After stunning animals have their throats slit
(stuck) and are bled to death It is the bleeding that causes
death It is highly probable that many animals are being stunned
inadequately and die in distress and pain
Many sheep and cattle are also ritually slaughtered ie they
have their throats slit whilst fully conscious If the meat isn't
considered kosher (because the carcass is damaged) this meat
is sold on the open market without kosher labelling
Disease
& money
The Food Standards
Agency combined foot hygene parts of council trading standards
agencies after the foot-and-mouth outbreak of the 1990s Meat
hygiene alone will cost the 60 million UK population £17,903,000
in 2002-3 and a separate tax on all food shops was considered
to pay for it The outbreak of mad cow disease which brought the
agency into existence also cleared the labour market out of vets
The animal farming industry, which is both hard to manage and
extremely competatitive, has to grapple with the safety of issues
of practices like putting bits of animal carcass into animal
feed or lifelong bulk antibiotic injections to herds of cows
Anyone who watched the TV news during the mad cow crisis or the
salmonella eggs incident knows what a strain the meat industry
puts on public finances and public health
Buy Synthetic:
set the trend
The public buy millions of tonnes of plastic products each year
with very little thought
More and more westerners are reducing their meat intake for vague
health and environmental reasons that aren't hard-edged
Nobody buys shoes without a thought There is a story of an MP
going through the lobby to vote on a bill One of his colleagues
marched-over "You're wearing soft shoes", he said,
as though the MP's flies were undone or he'd voted with the wrong
party It's the same in offices and school playgrounds, as well
as in our own heads We don't necessarily want to tell others
about ourselves, but we want to clarify our own identity to ourselves,
which hopefully others can take or leave Westerners want to look
Eastern; easterners want to look Western; we want to look different
from our parents or true to our roots; upmarket or cheeky, quietly
sensible or in your face Even an un-seen brand can make a difference
The very rich can buy specially made shoes, which look like ordinary
shoes but make them feel better and may even be comfortable The
poor can buy branded trainers There is not much room for all
this in the pages of a vegan shoe catalogue, showing shoes designed
for other markets or made in short production-runs People scoff
There's a website that describes vegan shoes as "the lesbian
orthopaedic look", but shoes set fashion more firmly than
other consumer choices and fashion sets the patterns of consumption
that cause over-farming, global warming and cruelty
If you are a trend-setter, then one of the simplest ways you
can help the planet is by setting a trend to go vegan, and shoes
are a good way to do it If you are a celebrity with millions
of teenage fans around the world who follow your every word,
buy some nice vegan shoes and mention them in interviews
Fur fashions
Fur has gone out of fashion because of rational argument and
people setting trends Top Shop has just put a "no
fur" sign in every shop window after stocking some dead
dogs that had possibly been skinned alive by mistake Nowadays,
the fur fashion statement is "I am superficial at best"
That is what fur says about the wearer Unfortunately, just that
kind of person is often drawn to the fashion industry as a way
of making a living; deadbeat designers are always looking for
another exclusive niche market or another taboo to break Fortunately,
real fashion that people wear every day is set by the people
around us and our own rational choices, and most people have
some idea about the facts of fur productionThe Coalition
to Abolish the Fur Trade has fact sheets about how to help
retailers avoid Topshop's mistake, while Respectforanimals
has a competition for young art students to design new T-shirts
each year
Fur Facts
Around 30 million animals, mainly mink and fox - but also chinchilla,
sable and even lynx - are held captive in row upon row of metal
wire cages, where they are unable to pursue their natural instincts
and so resort to stereotyped behaviour, self-mutilation and cannibalism
Death comes by gassing, electrocution, lethal injection or neck
breaking There are around 12 such factory farms in Britain (all
mink), imprisoning 50,000 to 100,000 animals Trapping accounts
for an estimated 5 million animals worldwide, normally by means
of steel-jawed leg hold traps which are now illegal in Britain
|