New LHCA video shows knock-on effect of wasted hides
The Leather and Hide Council of America (LHCA) has released a new video as part of the campaign through which it aims to defend and promote the industry, Real Leather, Stay Different.
In the new video, LHCA takes the message that we can either use hides or lose them a stage further.
It gives a figure of 300 million as the volume of cattle hides accruing from the meat and dairy sectors across the globe each year. LHCA says 60% of this volume is used to make leather.
This means 120 million hides a year are “just thrown away”, material from which tanners could make 560 million square-metres of leather, which LHCA says would be enough to put a pair of new shoes on the feet of every adult and every child in Africa.
This is more than a wasted opportunity to use the material because these discarded hides represent 3 million tonnes of waste going into landfill, producing 2.7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year.
Meanwhile, according to the video, the fashion industry produces 144 billion items of clothing every year, with 60% of them made from fibres that come from petrochemicals. To capture the carbon emissions from this level of garment production would require 10,000 square-kilometres of forest.
