In case you’re not familiar with bonded leather — cuz I wasn’t — the stuff is basically to leather what particleboard is to wood. Saith Wikipedia:
Bonded leather, or reconstituted leather, is an artificial material composed of 80% to 100% leather fibers (often waste scraps from leather tanneries or leather workshops).
If you’ve ever held a bible with a grainy-feeling cover in your hand, you likely know what bonded leather is. The stuff’s used for the “good” book, hymnals, sofa covers, and the like.
The thing is, bonded leather’s been used for these items for a long long time — long before green came into vogue. But now, companies using bonded leather are claiming eco-creds for doing so.
Still, bonded leather uses scraps that’d otherwise have been thrown away. Make the same item in real leather, and the carbon footprint, as well as the price, would be considerably higher.
So what do you think about bonded-leather-as-eco-material claims? Are such claims really green, or just greenwashing?
Militant vegans — Try not to skew the results too much by claiming everything that contains animal products is eco-evil. We all know vegan vinyl’s worse. Poll closes at the end of the day on Monday, Oct. 13, 2008.
Photo by timsamoff
The militant vegan crack was a little harsh. I don’t know too many vegans who are going around and claiming that vinyl is greener than anything. What is greener is using local, organic, plant-based materials and not trying to pretend that they look like leather. A little perspective can be a good thing.
Scraps that would have otherwise gone to waste is better than nothing, but any demand for bonded leather still encourages the factory farming of animals to procure leather in the first place, which is a very un-green practice, no matter how you look at it.
Comment by Jodie — October 11, 2008 @ 10:07 am
It depends on what binder (glue) is used to hold the leather particles together. (how truly eco it is) Most of the glues are pretty nasty. I sold rare books for a long time. Leather binding thats are tanned using the old methods last about 500-1000 years with proper care.
Bonded leather does not last — falls apart at the joints etc. Lasts about 50 years with care. Bonded leather is generally considered a cheap and cosmetic binding material. Cloth is superior (in terms of quality) to bonded leather.
Comment by Helen Driscoll — October 12, 2008 @ 9:25 pm