Sustainability of Real leather

Many people believe that fake leather is more sustainable than real leather although is completely false.

In our Blog, we usually talk about how Sol&Luna over the past 20 year has been turning Leather Craftsmanship into an Art.

We love using this communication tool to transmit our customers and followers all kind of news and beautiful pictures of our handmade products.

On many occasions, we have told you about the production process, with images and explanations of this great handcrafted work.

Today we want to go further back, to the origin of everything, to delegitimize those voices that question the sustainable character of leather, explaining how Sol&Luna always uses leftover hides from cows and transforms them into beautiful and eternal products.

Cattle farming Paraguay

Cows are not slaughtered for leather. Animals such as cows are raised for food by the meat and dairy industries. This production results in millions of hides that would go to waste unless they are used for leather.

Cattle farming Paraguay.

The reality, therefore, is that leather is a by-product of the food industry. As long as people eat meat there will be leftover hides that can be transformed into leather through recycling processes, helping to reduce the volume of leftovers in landfills.

Leather sun drying process

Contrary to what many people think, fake leather (called “Vegan leather”) is much more harmful to environmental sustainability.

These materials are made from plastics such as polyurethane or polyvinyl chloride, which are not at all sustainable, damage the environment and can take up to 10 times longer to decompose than real leather, introducing destructive micro plastics when disposed of in landfills.

However, well cared genuine leather lasts over time and becomes an object of desire, soft, beautiful and with patina.

In short, real leather comes from the leftover parts of the cow at the end of its life cycle, and far from ending up polluting landfills, it is absolutely sustainable over time.

In Sol&Luna we also use natural dyes and products in the whole process of leather treatment, to achieve the colors and finishes of the leather. Finally, our craftsmen create the unique art of desire.

leather dyeing process

This is the way we get the colors and finishes of the leather that we need to manufacture unique pieces hand finished and hand stitched by our craftsmen.