Beyond the animal aspect, producing leather is a _horrendously_ dirty process, and particularly difficult to clean up even if the manufacturers want to. Note wh

Beyond the animal aspect, producing leather is a _horrendously_ dirty process, and particularly difficult to clean up even if the manufacturers want to. Note where it's produced; despite the EU having more cows than China, say, China's production is far, far larger than Europe's, and Europe's is falling sharply as grace periods on RoHS etc compliance run out. China's recently been on a bit of an air and water pollution improvement binge, after the situation became really bad at the start of the century, so one would wonder how long that Chinese leather industry is for the world.