Animals Used for clothing

Animals are used as resources to provide materials for our clothing. In the name of fashion, millions of animals are killed for the clothing industry every year. These clothes could come from fur farms or slaughterhouses. A large amount of suffering goes into every fur-trimmed jacket, leather belt, and wool sweater.

Wool:

Wool is an animal product which is widely consumed. Sheep produce only enough wool to protect themselves from the cold. Some people may not know this but wild sheep do not need shearing. However, domestic sheep today have been selectively bred to produce more wool than normal. This selective breeding has caused many illnesses, even deaths from overheating and fly strike. Sheep also experience pain during shearing. Many workers immobilize sheep during shearing in order to get all the wool from their bodies, ignoring any stress or injuries they suffer as a result.

Fur:

Fur production uses many furry animals, whether raised on fur farms or trapped in the wild. These animals are skinned for clothes. About 35 animals are killed and skinned to make a single coat and the fur industry currently kills around 30 million animals a year. Animals on fur farms spend their entire lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages. Fur farmers use the cheapest and cruelest killing methods available which includes suffocation, electrocution, gas, and poison. The use of fur is now commonly rejected due to public awareness of the misery suffered by animals on fur farms, and their cruel deaths.

Leather:

Every year, leather industries slaughters more than a billion animals and tans their skins and hides.
Many of these animals endure all the horrors of factory farming. This includes extreme crowding and confinement, deprivation, and anesthetized castration, branding, tail-docking, and dehorning (as well as cruel treatment during transport and slaughter). Most leather produced and sold is made from the skins of cattle and calves. But leather is also made from horses, sheep, lambs, goats, and pigs who are slaughtered for meat. Other animals that are hunted and killed specifically for their skins includes zebras, bison, water buffalo, boars, kangaroos, elephants, eels, sharks, dolphins, seals, walruses, frogs, turtles, crocodiles, lizards, and snakes.

Alternatives and Pollution:

These days there are many clothes that aren't made from animals. There are products such as shoes,
jackets, sweaters and scarves made from synthetic materials or natural plant fibers such as cotton, hemp or linen. Also, synthetic materials are being recycled with companies now selling clothes made out of recycled plastic bottles. This is good considering how much pollution fur farms cause. For instance, each mink skinned by fur farmers produces about 44 pounds of feces in their lifetime. That adds up to 1 million pounds of feces produced annually by U.S. mink farms. One dangerous component of this waste is nearly 1,000 tons of phosphorus, which pollutes rivers and streams.

I think using animals for clothes is ridiculous. Back a long time ago it made sense because humans needed to protect themselves against the cold. Now a days that isn't a problem since we have heaters. We just use the animal's skin/fur/wool to "look good." There are alternative clothing that looks just as good as real animal clothing. I also find it sad that leather and wool productions aren't as frowned upon as fur. There are all just as cruel and they should all get equal amount of attention. Hopefully more people start turning to alternatives instead.

SOURCES: *MAY CONTAIN GRAPHIC CONTENT*
http://www.animalequality.net/clothing
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/fur/
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/animals-used-clothing-factsheets/leather-animals-abused-killed-skins/