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I didn't see the announcement, but I saw this blurb on Engadget: > The company noted that while leather is popular for things like watch straps, it has a serio
by hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
I didn't see the announcement, but I saw this blurb on Engadget:
> The company noted that while leather is popular for things like watch straps, it has a serious impact on the environment, particularly at Apple's scale.
Is that actually true? I remember reading a few years ago that there was actually a big glut of leather: people still eat steak and hamburgers, and without a market for the cow hides then that material is wasted. That is, I thought the leather market was largely a byproduct of the beef market, and that reducing leather usage won't have a measurable impact on reducing the number of slaughtered cows.
- AlanYx 3y agoIt's hard to know for sure. The most common analysis, following the PEFCR standard, takes the carbon impact of cows and then divides it up in a certain ratio between flesh and leather products, then adds the tanning and production steps. Arguably it would be fairer to treat leather as purely a byproduct, which would dramatically reduce the resulting carbon footprint numbers for leather.
- Solvate8441 3y agoWould the price of meat go up without the sale of leather? If so, I think it's more fair to call it a coproduct rather than a byproduct.
- saiya-jin 3y agoReplace killing cows with micro plastic pollution, slap Apple price on it and call it an eco improvement. In few years full reverse, cleaning up the planet while supporting free range happy lives of cows. Really, who actually buys this in-your-face bullshit? There are proper technical improvements to talk about.
- notJim 3y agoI learned recently that microplastics are primarily from fabrics. Our polyester/synthetic workout clothes shed them in the washer and they end up everywhere. Plastics also generally have a pretty low carbon footprint, ironically.
- layer8 3y agoApple’s new “FineWoven” products seem to be fabric-like.
- notJim 3y agoSure, but I doubt many people will be throwing them in the washing machine.
- eep_social 3y agoAlso tires https://microplastics.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43591-021-00008-w https://microplastics.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s435...
- FrankoDelMar 3y agoI read that somewhere as well, but I can’t find any reputable sources.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoHere is a detailed Fortune article from 2019: https://archive.vn/bBzYV https://archive.vn/bBzYV
- seu 3y agoOne of the issues is that the tanning process requires the use of toxic chemicals, that are afterward often released to the environment.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoWell - they could just tan the leather the old fashioned way and use the cow brains. https://www.leather-dictionary.com/index.php/Brain_tanning https://www.leather-dictionary.com/index.php/Brain_tanning
- jjkaczor 3y agoYeah, but then what would they make dog food and jello out of? /s
- babyshake 3y agoI'd love to see Apple's slick marketing video about how your new Apple Watch strap was tanned with cow brains.
- crawancon 3y ago"we asked ourselves what would a cow think about this? so to do that we really wanted to get inside a cows brain. we figure dok now that we're here, let's explode it out onto the platter of dead skin of that same animal to capture it's essence. so without further adieu I present to you iBrainSplatStainedWatchStrap"
- graypegg 3y agoPrionic Shield™
- ipqk 3y agoUSA & europe tanneries are usually pretty regulated and treat their wastewater. Other countries may vary.
- clord 3y agoyou're right, this is greenwashing. I sell into the market sometimes and the hides are basically wasted unless you try hard to line up buyers. plus, if your beef is grass fed for its whole life like ours, it's carbon neutral, as all the carbon that goes into the animal came from the atmosphere. It's true that factory-raised beef is bad for the environment though, as they eat grains that are fertilized from oil via Haber–Bosch. It's also true that tanning uses lots of nasty stuff, but there is vegetable tanning which works well and sourced from nuts and stuff.
- etrautmann 3y agoI thought the issue was that cows produce a lot of methane which is 20x worse foe trapping heat than CO2?
- reportingsjr 3y ago> plus, if your beef is grass fed for its whole life like ours, it's carbon neutral, as all the carbon that goes into the animal came from the atmosphere This totally ignores the land use issue. Cattle absolutely decimate natural areas. e.g. significant areas of the midwest/great plain that were prairie with deep roots to store carbon are now pasture. Pasture grass has comparatively shallow roots and limited ability to store carbon.
- mech987987 3y agoHasn't the midwest host large herds of grazing buffalo for millenia? I think the last I read about this stuff, most cattle farmers want their grass to still be the old school deep-rooted stuff, if other grasses take over it is a symptom of overgrazing.
- padjo 3y ago> Hasn't the midwest host large herds of grazing buffalo for millenia? Only because humans killed all the megafauna at the end of the last ice age. The question now is if populating it with millions of cows for us to eat is the right thing to do.
- loopback_zero 3y agoI'd go as far as saying that leather accessories are actually even better for environment since they easily outlast any fabric or silicone ones. It's really just shameless greenwashing from Apple, nothing more.
- gnicholas 3y agoThere are interesting second-order effects. For example, this will tend to make wholesale leather less expensive, for producers of third-party bands and other small items (I assume that large items use a different type of leather, since they require larger swathes). I'm surprised they're pricing these new fabric bands at $99. If they sold these alongside leather bands, would they sell at that price? Seems like they're trying to position them as a replacement for a premium product, but without any proof that they are worthy of the lofty price.
- car 3y agoLeather itself is a driver of deforestation and not just a secondary byproduct. Why alternatives to leather matter: Nowhere to hide: how the fashion industry is linked to amazon rainforest destruction [0] [0] https://www.stand.earth/publication/forest-conservation/amaz https://www.stand.earth/publication/forest-conservation/amaz... Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29433500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29433500
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoFYI your link is bad, should be https://stand.earth/resources/nowhere-to-hide-how-the-fashion-industry-is-linked-to-amazon-rainforest-destruction/ https://stand.earth/resources/nowhere-to-hide-how-the-fashio... . I read that article, but I disagree that the conclusion is "Leather itself is a driver of deforestation and not just a secondary byproduct." That is, what I'd like to know is whether all those cows in Brazil would still exist even without a leather marker, but just for their beef. The linked research sort of tries to make that argument, but it doesn't really provide any convincing evidence.