Reposting a reshare is circularity! @thesustainablefashionforum 💜 “The vast majority of ‘vegan’ materials are plastic-based, even when they say they are plant-based because of the binder in use,” said Steven D. Lange, director of the Leather Research Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati. To evaluate how vegan leather stacks up, it’s important to take stock of the existing variations and those coming to market and the nuances. First, there’s pleather — and then there’s everything else. Today, the market is consumed by pleather which often slaps plastic uppers like polyurethane or polyvinyl chloride (which contains dangerous chemical additives like chlorine, phthalates and lead) onto oil-derived nylon, acrylic or polyester textile backings. Plant fibers (from apple, pineapple and cactus but not altogether free of plastic) and cell-cultured leather (increasingly mycelium root which, again, may not be scourged of plastic) are becoming popular as consumer awareness grows. As more vegan-catered products and innovations flood the market, experts support asking questions on comparable material impact and performance, labor, scale and product end of life or biodegradability — and seeing which tradeoffs one can live with.” Excerpt 📝