cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4051055

This is to help a friend find things for gifts for vegans in their life and so on. Mentioned here https://hexbear.net/post/3987758

Shoes are a gigantic problem when it comes to no plastic vegan clothing, pretty much everything is made of plastic when it comes to shoes. Rubber soles can often be mixed with plastic, and same is true with the so called plant leathers, which are merely a marketing gimmick.

Upon diving deeply on leather replacements, I've found that almost all 'plant' leathers are only 35% of the plant it claims to be. It does in fact change the quality and feel of the material, however, its still mostly fucking plastic. All of these companies doing these various leathers claim to be innovators saving the environment, but they all use the same fundamental process to mix plants into their plastic leather, hence the same percentage.

This includes:

• Apple leather

• Mushroom leather

• Cork leather

• Cactus leather

• Pineapple leather

This all points to the idea that this is just bazinga stuff currently and a fad liberals use to make themselves feel better. The only options that immediately spring to mind that aren't plastic are certain kinds of canvas, cotton, and (non vegan) leather shoes which seem to be the least plastic if ordered custom with wooden soles. Most canvas and cotton shoes all look the same and aren't particularly feminine and many use plastic tainted rubber soles, laminates, and glue, so the search continues.

Desserto, the company who makes cactus leather, seems to sport a lofty claim that their more pure and new samples of cactus leather are now 90% cactus, and 10% PU. This is a much more sensible ratio, but I cannot find information on anyone that actually sells this magical material.

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Next up on the search: MIRUM rubber leather seems to be promising. It sports a claim that it is 100% untainted-by-plastic natural rubber (unlike many shoe soles and tires). Rubber farming is of course an environmentally intensive process for many reasons, but it technically is a carbon sink, technically is biodegradable, and if done properly, it could be good. I will be digging into this next. If it looks good, then there will be a struggle about finding a place that sells it in a US womens in size 12+. Rubber obviously has a very intense history of imperialism and in the present so... I'm very doubtful of the ethics of this. But I will dig.