Leather: My internal ethics debate distraught by my love of shoes

I love shoes. I absolutely adore them.  I can't buy them.  These shoes for example. I stared at them in TopShop for months until they finally sold out.  I love them.

I strongly believe that no animal should have to die for anything man made, be it for food, warmth or fashion. There are plenty of alternatives, so why do we need to murder 200 foxes for a coat?  I take the same approach to leather.  Why, when there are plenty of alternatives, do we make shoes and bags from leather? The answer is plainly that if treated correctly, a leather jacket can last for over 20 years, maintaining it's purpose throughout.  A pleather jacket will last 1-2 years, maybe 5 years if you're lucky. Chances are that it will lose it's shape and waterproofing abilities by then and will inevitably end up at landfill.  Plastic takes an awful lot longer to biodegrade than leather. This is a debate I've often had with myself and friends.  

Last Thursday I threw on a pair of faux leather army boots I got last year which are now falling apart.  I slipped on the way to work and again on the way to my make-up class.  Later as I was walking home, crossing Tara St, I slipped, banged my knee & face, lost all of my stuff on the road. Distressed with a taxi speeding towards me,  I managed to scramble to the path and save myself, leaving a few products and fake eyelashes behind :( Three time I fell in one day.  I looked at my boots and they had ripped.  I have since thrown them out.  I got a year out of them and that's good, right?  Hardly.  A pair of leather boots would not have ripped, nor would they have gathered the need to be thrown out. So here I am asking myself: What is PU faux leather made from?  Does Pleather have a lesser or greater negative effect on the environment than natural leather?

We all now the PVC is one of the most damaging materials on the planet and 4 years of mechanical engineering only reinforced that on a weekly basis.  For this debate, I'm referring to polyurethane or PU Leather - AKA Pleather.  It is made almost entirely from oil (plastic) and manufactured burning plenty of fossil fuels - a huge CO2 threat to Mother Nature.  According to the Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe, producing a pound of polyurethane foam emits 3.7 pounds of CO₂.  That ain't good. 

Leather is a natural product, however it doesn't come with an automatic environmentally friendly tag.    Cows bred for human utilities are the number 1 contribution of green houses gases generated by man kind.  The methane produced by cows contributes 18-22% of the gases generated by man-kind defeated only by the Air-Line industry. Not only that but the 'tanning' process involved in the treatment of leather involves a huge amount hexavalent chromium - a massive carcinogenic.  This toxic substance is inhaled by the factory workers, and burned into the atmosphere creating a large pollutant cloud.  Although in fairness this is changing and many high-end leather producers provide workers with safe conditions.

So here's my problem,  both are pretty much as bad as the other, but as leather lasts about 10 times longer than pleather, perhaps it is indeed the greener choice.  So after looking into this, I still won't buy leather... and I'm not exactly mad on pleather now either.  But I still love shoes.  Maybe there's ethical leather made in an environmentally friendly way?  Perhaps there are vegan alternatives?  And now my real internal debate:  Fur is wrong, vintage or not.  What about vintage leather? Or organic & humane leather? I'm a vegetarian because of the effect the meat industry has on the environment - the not killings animals thing just came with the territory.  So maybe organic leather might be an option?

Vegan Shops & Shoes: 

• Converse, Vans, Macbeths, Toms & Rocket Dog (except the leather ones obv!)
• Some Doc Martins - I need a pair of these!!!!
• The rest are all fuckin ugly.  If anyone can point me toward some delicious Vegan & Environmentally friendly high heels I will love you forever :)
• EDIT: Jeffrey Campbell made a vegan collection. I MUST HAVE THEM. Get back in stock NOW!

Sources: 

• The Green Lantern - an Irish favourite of mine 
• http://www.withouthotair.com/ - The website for the book Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by Prof. David MacKay of the Department of Physics in the University of Cambridge.  I read this book for a Thermodynamics project in my final year and it changed my life. Definitely worth a read.  The book is available in the TCD library but also an e-version is available for free on this site.
• http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/314/1/Leather-and-the-environment.html

I'd appreciate any advice, criticisms because I really want a pair of god damn nice shoes that last longer than 6 months!!!