The Use of Leather to Make Cloths Should Be Discou Essays - Hides

The Use of Leather to Make Cloths Should Be Discouraged Most of us love to wear leather shoes and clothes, but have anyone stop and thought whether it is right or wrong to put on products made of leather? Perhaps not. This essay is centered on the argument why the use of leather to make clothing should be discouraged by all means by all governments across the globe so we can save animals and workers. To begin with, many innocent animals are slaughtered each year to cater for the leather industry. According to PETA, the numbers actually go as high as one billion yearly. Slaughtering them may not be a problem but they are reared just to provide leather which makes them to be reared in unfriendly environment awaiting their turns to be slaughtered which is wrong. Animals are transported in unfriendly means to the slaughterhouse. In India for instance where most of the animals for slaughter come from have poor transport conditions which are against the law but traders do it anyway. Indian law requires that a maximum of six animals be transported at a time but this doesn't happen. Animals are taken to the slaughterhouses without being fed because at the end of the day only their hides matter (Tutu 106). Sometimes, leather is obtained in cruel means. In China for instance, calves that have not been born yet are obtained from their mother's wombs because their leather is fine. According to Bekoff (404) obtaining leather from animals is done when some of them are still alive. Under normal circumstances, leather is obtained from animals using chemicals; bactericide solution and sulfides to ensure that leather obtained is of high quality. Employees who work in the leather firms are also exposed to health risks. As mentioned earlier, chemicals are used to make the leather obtained in its highest quality. A study by Rastogi, Pandey and Tripathi (132) reveal that tests done on employees working in leather firms showed that they are exposed to a lot of chromium coming from the animals' urine whose accumulation in the body may lead to Dermatitis and in some cases ulcers and nasal cancer. Opponents of this argument may argue that if not slaughtered for leather, animals are slaughtered for meat which makes leather tanning nothing out of the norm. This argument is lame because some animals such as horses, cats, dogs are not food for everyone thus their slaughtering is a waste of innocent animals' lives. Others may argue that the conditions in which animals for slaughtering are reared in matter less because at the end of the day only its hide matters. This is a misinformed argument because animals are living organisms and deserve to be treated with care. Opponents may still claim that slaughtering in whatever means is cruel in itself. What these people fail to understand is that the concern of leather tanners lies in the quality of leather and not the suffering that animals undergo which is unethical. While some people might argue that the names infections are not limited to leather firms only they are more prevalent in leather firms thus leather tanning should stop in order to save workers health. After all, in leather firms, chromium levels are extremely high. To summarize, evidence in this essay shows that leather used to make shoes and clothes is obtained unethically as it affects the animals and the workers negatively. The negative effects range from animals being slaughtered cruelly, workers being exposed to hazardous situations and animals being reared ruthlessly. Consequently, leather should cease being used for clothes and shoes. Works Cited Bekoff, Marc. Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal welfare. Santa Barbara, Calif: Greenwood Press, 2010. Print. PETA. "The Global Leather Trade." PETA,2017, www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/leather-industry/global-leather-trade/. Accessed 8Dec.2017. Rastogi, Subodh Kumar, Amit Pandey, and Sachin Tripathi. "Occupational health risks among the workers employed in leather tanneries at Kanpur." Indian journal of occupational and environmental medicine12.3 (2008): 132. Tutu, Archbishop Desmond. The global guide to animal protection. University of Illinois Press, 2013.