Comment on Most of plant based leather uses a lot of polyurethane
MirrorGiraffe@piefed.social 7 hours agoI had a pair of boots that I used 9 months a year in Swedish climate for roughly 10 years without a hitch. They also went for hikes in Costa Rica and across India and Nepal. At the end they looked worn but were still functional as I swapped them out for another pair of vegan leather boots.
I’ve had other vegan shoes that lasted a lot shorter but that can be said about my animal skin shoes as well.
Modern bio-leather causes about 10% off the emissions leather does and doesn’t have the same tanning process which is extremely toxic.
Not saying that vegan is strictly better, but rumours of it’s crappiness are severely out of date.
Witchfire@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I definitely haven’t had the same experience. Anything I get that is pleather ends up breaking down sooner rather than later (especially thrifted pleather). Hell, my favorite pair of pleather pants recently lost a dish sized area by the crotch, and those were bought new from a brand I trust. I had to fix a huge patch in my partner’s bag recently, and virtually every pair of pleather boots has ended up in the trash. I have a long pleather skirt that basically ripped from floor to waist that I’m still deciding whether to fix or not.
I will add the disclaimer that I’m an experienced leatherworker which affects my bias
I rarely get real leather new, and when it fails it’s rarely the actual leather. I have a jacket I thrifted about a decade ago that is still going strong, though I’ve had to replace the buttons a few times. My most recent leather boots survived multiple camping trips and heavy use, until the plastic zipper broke. Even my leatherwork mainly uses repurposed scraps. At this point my partner and I refuse to buy/use a daily purse that is anything but leather because of how long it lasts. It’s worth repairing leather, it’s not worth repairing pleather.