Leather is a more sustainable and environmentally friendly material

German automobile manufacturing group Continental Corporation demonstrated a new concept car AMBIENC3 at an event called IAA Mobility held in Munich in September this year.

This model uses an interior material called Laif. The person in charge of the company’s development department stated, “Lev material has excellent breathability and soft feel. Its performance and sensory are similar to leather. It is the best substitute for leather and will not be obtained through the slaughter of animals like leather. ."

Continental is known for manufacturing automobile tires. In 2016, after acquiring Hornschuch, the original developer of Leif, it entered the automotive interior industry and became a supplier of automotive interior materials. Hornschuch said that Leif material is a mixture of vinyl and polyurethane, with excellent sustainability.

These statements immediately caused repercussions in the leather industry. The Secretary General of the International Council of Tanners believes: “No matter how the developers of Leif explain, the fact that the fabric is plastic cannot be denied. To define whether a material is sustainable, at least one basic requirement must be met, that is, the material is Renewable, products made with it can be biodegradable at the end of their useful life. Leather can fully meet this requirement, while plastics do not have this basic property.

In fact, it is an accepted fact that there is no leather industry without the meat industry. As long as humans consume meat products, there must be leather industry, which is a by-product of the meat industry.

According to statistics, the annual consumption of meat products in the world will produce about 7 million tons of cowhide, and cowhide only accounts for a small proportion in the entire meat product value chain. The 7 million tons of hides produced each year is approximately equivalent to 1,000 trucks per day. The question that follows is how to deal with the more than 7 million tons of hides produced every year? The way out is nothing more than abandonment or utilization.

If these hides are discarded, the usual method is to incinerate or landfill them. Both of these methods will seriously damage the ecological environment.

If the raw hides are fully utilized and transformed into high value-added, exquisite and fashionable leather and its products through processing, the impact on the ecological environment will be greatly reduced. Of course, the leather processing process must meet high standards of environmental protection. From this point of view alone, the leather industry is an industry that is environmentally friendly, consistent with cyclical experience and sustainable development.