I mean we can also make long lasting clothes out of natural fibers without hurting animals.
Not everywhere. Many places its much more sustainable to make clothes from the animals you are eating and it makes sure that you arenβt wasting any of the life youβve taken that you need to survive.
Wool is one of those natural fibers that can be harvested without harming the animal. Even if you end up eating the goat/sheep, it can provide a few coats of wool before hand.
Yes this is true but a lot of places canβt mantain a sheep herd, because it is too cold or to dry for grasses and food for the sheep
Trueβ¦and you donβt need to live in a house, or use the Internet, or have a bank account, or have a computer/mobileβ¦all things that have caused catastrophic damage to the environment and killed countless animals.
One has to draw a line somewhere- perhaps you shouldnβt be holier than though just because you draw the line at βI donβt want to see the evidence of the deathβ
Maybe YOU donβt have to eat animals to survive. What a privilege u you have that you live in a place where vegetation can be grown in your area or more likely shipped there cheaply(not free of harm to the environment or people\animals). But your experience is not universal there are places on earth that people live where that is not an option. And some of those people have been living there sustainably for 10s of thousands of years. Not to speak of people whoβs body needs meat to live because of some other reason. You can not eat animals and thatβs fine but it doesnβt replace the science of how to stop environmental damage.
Vegans in western cultures have access to dietary supplements derived from non-animal sources. Thatβs basically impossible without access to modern industrial food processes.
If weβre talking about cultures without ready access to plant fibers for clothes, then theyβre not going to have vegan supplements, either.
Iβm privileged enough to have a choice in that regard, havenβt eaten any animals in months. Sometimes Iβm a naughty boi and eat some chicken tho.
You can indeed. But growing cotton has already resulted in environmental changes beyond my comprehension.
I guess the first step should be to adapt a habit of clothes repair
Growing cattle has also had a massive impact on the environment. And you often need more land for animal based materials because you both need land for the animals and the land to grow food for the animals. With cotton at least you just need land for the cotton.
I dare you to travel to Uzbekistan and see for yourself whatβs needed to grow cotton for the whole region.
Why is this always brought up, stop spreading this. Animals usually are not fed grain unless itβs harvesting time. We also do not grow food just to feed them. The grain we feed animals is shit you cannot eat. Itβs roots/stalks/stems/bad/rotted plant matter. Itβs the leftovers from the greens we can consume. Most animals also are raised on land that is not suitable for crops, rocky/hilly/weak topsoil land.
I mean you can make leather from all kinds of skins. And thereβs oneβ¦ animalβ¦ that we have a particularly large amount of on earth and we regularly have to get rid of a significnat number of deceased of without currently re-using their skin. Hrmβ¦ cool idea for an industrialist horror movieβ¦
And cow feed is also grown with tons of pesticides and you need much more of it for less tissue at the end.
I have hard time seeing clothing with a bigger environmental than leather.
Very few materials compare to the durability of animal leather. When you need leather, you need leather.
What do you think most clothes were made out of before polyester? Most people wore cotton, linen, or wool clothes. The first two are from plants, the last one doesnβt kill the animal. Hemp was also a major source of textile. Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?
Nevermind how downright bad leather is for most clothing applications. Itβs high maintenance, stiff, non-breathing, non-padding and cannot be repaired easily. Thereβs a reason it was only used for specific parts of clothing in specific situations once we had figured out stuff like cotton or wool.
Wool is more of a byproduct of the lamb meat industry these days, so wool and meat are inextricably entangled. Iβm a sheep farmer, last couple years we threw the wool away due to lack of demand. Nobody is raising sheep just for wool.
However this is a problem with our distorted markets and not with the sheep industry, this valuable fiber is being dumped or burned while we pump out synthetic crap. It costs us more to remove it from the sheep to keep them from overheating, than we can sell it for.
I canβt wear wool. It physically hurts and causes a rash. I want to like wool. I want to wear wool. I can appreciate that wool is good. But even cashmere Iβd like sandpaper.
I think we all know what the solution is. We need to genetically engineer a sheep that is 15 times as big with wool 200 times softer the reproduces by laying eggs, and make it so that it produces mostly drone sheep that are able to care for it without human intervention, grooming it attentively and instinctually building large hives out of the coarse wool we currently call wool, so that all we have to do is harvest the total wool to have cuddly soft garments in cute colors.
Is it a lanolin allergy, and if so have you tried alpaca? Its as soft as cashmere (in superfine grade and above), but shouldnβt make people with wool allergies itchy. It doesnβt have the hive mind qualities you seem to be looking for, but it might help with the itchiness.
This is true and also not true. Weβve thrown away cow hides and sheep skins/wool for lack of demand, but I also know the wool industry and theyβre not exactly chomping at the bit to get their hands on the garbage wool slaughterhouses (or in our case small/medium farms) produce. There are producers who raised sheep just for high quality wool whose meat you wouldnβt really want to eatβ¦
Yes valid point, our wool is not ideal being farm flock wool, medium fibers. But for years we still sheared/skirted/bagged and tried to deliver at least a saleable product, it was disappointing to see it go to zero value. I would love to see it at least made into insulation batts or something.
Most of that high end Merino wool comes from places like NZ where they can graze year round, here the hay and chaff always mess the wool up a little and most have said running a true fiber flock is not economical. In Canada at least fiber has always just been an adjunct to a productive meat flock.
I ran some Columbias for a couple years but let them go quick. Gorgeous wool but terribly behaved critters and the lambing percentage and flavour were very poor compared to our Dorset cross main flock.
Thatβs really frustrating to me. Wool is a great material, as long as itβs treated correctly. Hell, you can even blend it with synthetics to get get some of the properties that it doesnβt normally have, like wear resistance. But the costs are too much for the fashion industry; people are willing to pay $50 for a cotton poly blend shirt that is worn out in a year, but not $200 for a nylon wool blend shirt that last for ten.
Leather doesnβt breathe and you donβt kill sheep for their wool. What are you talking about?
And most people wore clothes that came from plants, like cotton and linen. Leather and fur were not for commoners, and are not sustainable compared to plants.
Nice example of a false equivalencyβ¦
Last time I checked we didnt have to kill sheep to get their wool to make clothes. Does wool not last as long or did I miss something?
of course it isnt vegan; veganism is about ethical treatment, not just not killing. mass production of wool doubtless involves tons of cruelty
