Leather furniture is possibly the last thing that comes to mind when you think of earth friendly. As a wider slice of Americans realize the importance and relatively small inconvenience factor of buying green, the manufacturers and distributors that service us change and innovate to accommodate our needs. The newest crowd of eco-friendly enthusiasts care deeply about mother nature, but still enjoy eating, wearing, and watching TV on products created from animals. This created a great opportunity to create an earth-friendly leather product.
Eco Hides
As you may already know from our informative leather furniture articles, leather furniture is derived from layers, or grains, of animal hide. These grains are stripped of any organic material with a regimen of highly acidic solutions and then treated with a tanning solution that prevents the hide from decomposing. Afterward, the hide is split, re-tanned, dyed, and oiled. These extensive chemical processes leave behind a trove of toxic chemicals such as chrome and other heavy metals. Earth friendly leather furniture would have to be created by some alternative process.
Eco Hides, from Danfield Inc, remove these polluting chemicals from their tanning process. Their use of natural vegetable products and waxes make an earth friendly leather product a reality. Keep in mind that leather furniture is much more durable than fabric materials, and that earth friendly leather will take over 30 years to biodegrade if left unconditioned. These factors together make the premise of Eco Hides a wonderful alternative.
Remember that genuine leather outlasts leather-like products and bi-cast leather. Faux leather products derived from little or no actual leather. These synthetic materials are laden with petro-chemicals, including PVC, which is a known human carcinogen.
While we are yet to find a leather furniture company buying earth friendly leather for their production, we can only assume that consumer demand will drive this product to the front of specialty furniture manufacturer's minds.
Bookmark with:
Comments
I'd be interested to see how this feels
Compared to traditional leather, if this was basically the same that would be amazing. You have to wonder how much of the tanning solutions are absorbed by your skin when you wear traditional leather.