What’s the bet this’ll be some synthetic shit thatll shed micro plastics everywhere.
I‘m guessing it’s mostly recycled polyester? They only state it reduces carbon emissions:
Made from durable microtwill, the material has a soft, suedelike feel. The FineWoven material was also designed with the earth in mind — it’s made from 68 percent post-consumer recycled content and significantly reduces carbon emissions compared to leather.
I’m guessing the main plastic issue isn’t coming from relatively small items that you keep using for years and rather from the infinite amount of packaging that we throw away daily. Not sure what the “ideal” material would be, but whatever it is, if it’s 70% recycled that’s probably a good start.
And post customer recycled sounds impressive too if its not just marketing wording, cause most ‘recycled’ plastics just recycle as part of the manufacturing process, but still create all new plastics
You are probably right that industrial and packaging are probably major sources, but microfibers in clothes is a big problem too
Laundry alone causes around half a million tonnes of plastic microfibres to be released into the ocean every year—the equivalent of almost three billion polyester shirts.
I’m sure people will disagree, but it has increasingly felt odd to me that Apple was still selling leather accessories with their environmental attitude. I think the new ones look great and I’m happy they’re doing this. There’s still more than enough leather accessories from third parties.
Also, the iPhone leather cases I had wore off quite quickly and looked terrible after a while, so not a big loss there if you ask me.
For a premium brand selling itself on premium quality, their leather stuff sucked pretty hard.
Some sort of woven material is exactly what I suggested when the rumors were first brought up. There are absolutely things in the canvas neighborhood that have a lot of the traits decent leather does that apply to phone cases. I think it has a lot of potential.
Eh, it’s not like people are raising cattle for the purpose of leather. It’s a byproduct of the meat industry for the most part.
Dropping leather isn’t going to do anything for the environment because those cows are still going to be raised and killed for meat.
Leather is far more environmentally friendly. Slightly more CO2, but zero plastic, micro-plastic, and PFAS pollution. Properly cared for and produced, it also lasts a lifetime. Apple’s leather products of late were awful quality.
Leather is absolutely not more environmentally friendly. Did you forget leather comes from cows and doesn’t just appear magically out of thin air?
Nice try, but it most certainly isn’t. Especially compared to recycled materials such as their new one:
The FineWoven material was also designed with the earth in mind — it’s made from 68 percent post-consumer recycled content and significantly reduces carbon emissions compared to leather.
I’ve had a leather belt for over 20 years and wear it every day.
Beats the crap out of any other material in the longevity department as far as I’m concerned.
Was there much leather left in many of the accessories anyway? The iPhone 13 and 14 leather cases I’ve had or seen have worn out really quickly, they don’t seem to last anywhere near as long as the leather cases I had in years past.
I even used to be able to sell my old leather cases in the 4/5/6 days because people wanted the built up leather patina.
It comes down to the kind of leather used. Most manufacturers will say they use “genuine leather”, which is technically leather because it’s the scraps from other leather products glued or bonded together. You also have pleather, AKA fake or synth leather, which iirc if it’s 100% pleather it’s actually good, but anything less than 100% and it becomes absolute shit.
The older leather stuff and modern premium leather will usually be full-grain leather, which is the actual good leather we know and love.
At least they are doing something. Why not complain about companies who don’t give a shit and continue to poison the environment?
I am also sure whichever phone you’re using was built by some laborer who is underpaid and has poor working conditions overseas. This isn’t an apple issue, it’s an issue of the companies who own the factories who build the phones (Foxconn)
But they also announced new, non-leather Hermès bands? I would assume, the horse stays?
And then there’s this:
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/09/13/hermes-selling-apple-watch-series-9-leather-bands/
