When I was in Russia, I bought a hat made of fox fur. It looks gorgeous! And it is so warm that I am ready to go to Siberia or Norway. I also thought – it is natural fur, it might be great for an environment. Who cares if one animal is dead, it was so for million years. And also, the fur is biodegradable. So everything is fine? It appeared that not.

I found an article on the most famous Russian business media RBC (РБК):

Natural fur

The fur becomes banned in the world. The fashion houses – Gucci, Prada, and Chanel have rejected the use of fur. California banned the production and selling of fur clothes. People decided that it is unethical: animals live in bad conditions.

85% of all fur is produced on farms. Most of the time the livestock consist of foxes and minks. People feed them with chicken giblets, or fish giblets, that would have been thrown away anyway. The CO2 emissions are produced due to the lifecycle of animals.

The other fur is got from wild animals. For example, Canada Goose, the brand that produces luxury jackets for arctic temperatures, uses coyote fur. America gives permission to kill wild animals to control the population.

Animal skins are cleaned, washed, dried, softened and stretched. To prevent fur things from spoiling and decomposing, they are treated with special chemicals, usually formaldehyde or chromium. So the fur becomes germ-resistand and can last longer. This is such a dangerous process that the experts of the World Bank have included fur dressing in the top five industries with the highest level of contamination with toxic metals.

Solvents that cause respiratory and oncological diseases are used in fur processing plants. These substances can get into the soil and water, so that all the fish is getting dead and the soil becomes not only unsuitable
for farming, but also the “poison” gets to the subterranean water and is consumed by us.

The problem of the fur is also with the keeping of it. To make fur last longer, it should be kept in a cold place, with temperature of 1-7 °C. There are some businesses who keep the fur in fridges in summer. The other problem is the biodegradability. First, fur can’t be recycled, only decomposed. But there any only few places in the world where it can be decomposed.

Synthetic fur

Synthetic fur appeared at the beginning of the XX century as a more affordable replacement for expensive natural fur. Acrylic or modacrylic textile is usually used for the pile (nap on cloth), and it is fixed on a fabric basis. Acrylic polymers are made from chemicals derived from coal, air, water, oil and limestone. Some companies, like House of Fluff, uses recycled plastic.

The problem with artificial fur is that it is not biodegradable. However, there are some companies, like Ecopel, that uses corn and recycled polyester.

In my opinion, there synthetic fur is a bullshit. It is like a wooden wall in a house, that is actually made of plastic, or the gypsum that looks like stone. There is no need to look like a nature. The synthetics must give us new forms of clothing, new features. May be the usage of livestock is less ethical nowadays, but at least you get the product of nature, that does not pretend to be somewhat else.

I like one example: the christmas tree. As you know, you may either buy a real tree or to buy the artificial one. And remember – the natural tree is always better! it has a smell, it lives and absorbs CO2. Moreover, the pine tree consumes much less water, that the artificial one. Interestingly, but only if you keep the plastic tree for more than 24 years, there will be emitted less CO2, than when buying a pine tree each year. I thought, that the situation with fur is close the pine trees, but i was mistaken.

Natural vs. Synthetic fur

I have found a paper of Russian PhDs in design, They compared the influence of natural and synthetic fur on the environment during the production. The result was that the artificial fur was better in nearly every parameter, except water usage, where the difference was tenfold.

Do you know that to produce 1 fur coat, 11-13 minks should be killed. It is too much; moreover, you should give 50 kilograms of food to each animal, 550-650 kilograms of food per coat. And also, they have to drink an extreme amount of water. I would instead prefer buying the minks and keeping them safe in my courtyard than just killing them. Do you want to buy the fur stuff now? The best way to save these animals is to stop buying fur clothes.

I am not an expert of the fur industry, I have just shown 2 similar opinions and wrote my thoughts about it. If you know more about this theme, please write your comment below.