Manufacturers are offering various eco-friendly alternatives to popular goods. In the reality, many of them are actually nowhere close to being friendly towards the natural environment. In this article, you will find two popular switches regarded as less harmful for nature: artificial leather and fur as well as artificial Christmas trees.
Artificial leather and fur
The choice not to purchase coats made from natural fur is saving thousands of animals every year. Certainly, it is a very good way to minimise the cruelty in the world and help the natural environment. Still, the real help of such a choice depends on the alternative options.
Unfortunately, almost all of the coats imitating fur available on the market are made of artificial materials which are the same polymers used in all the plastic packages conscious consumers are fighting with. Indeed, it is rather difficult to imitate an effect of fur without reaching polyethylene.
If a coat made of artificial fur is purchased with an intent of being used for years, it is not thus bad as buying it as an item of quick fashion which will be thrown away soon. Since such a material is an artificial polymer, it will not be biodegraded during the next couple of hundreds of years.
In fact, even if you are really planning to wear the same coat made from artificial fur for year, it simply might not happen since such items of clothes are more prone to damages than real fur. Coats made of artificial fur can quickly lose their appearance.
The same goes for artificial leather which is made either from polypropylene or polyvinyl chloride. These materials are extremely fragile especially if used during the winter when they can easily crack and torn apart because of the change of the temperatures. Shoes made of artificial leather have an especially short lifespan.
What should you do?
Certainly, resigning from purchasing coats made from natural fur is a great idea. Yet, it is also quite easy to do it, since today people do not have to wear natural fur in order to keep themselves warm. There are plenty of advanced artificial materials which can hold warmth really great. Of course, this is an alternative to natural fur under the condition of purchasing one coat for a couple of years.
It is more difficult to make a right decision when it comes to the shoes, especially winter boots if you do not want to reach for the goods made from genuine leather. Real leather shoes are certainly not an ecologically-friendly choice, however, getting one pair of a high quality can allow you to use it for years, whereas winter boots made of artificial leather in all likelihood will last only for a single season.
Artificial Christmas tree
In order to minimise cutting the trees in the forests, especially illegal ones, manufacturers have been offering artificial Christmas trees for years. What can be wring with such goods?
In fact, the statistics says the average amount of production of gases harmful for our atmosphere required by production and transportation of a standard artificial Christmas tree of a two-metre height is 40 kg. Burning a real tree of such a size will release ten times less gases. Actually, there is no need to burn such a tree at all as real trees can be recycled.
Of course, many people think that even with such calculation, no one in his right mind buys an artificial Christmas tree for a single season. That is right, however, the most serious problem with such decorations is the fact they are made of several materials such as artificial polymers and metal. The structure of such trees makes it impossible to recycle them. Thus, even if you are planning to use your Christmas tree for twenty years, you will still have to throw it away at a particular point and it will require hundreds of years to be completely degraded by nature.
What should you do to make an ecologically-friendly choice?
First of all, if you already have an artificial Christmas tree which is not severely damaged, it is better to use it as long as possible. Secondly, if you really need a new one, you can check for second-hand trees in your city. Sometimes people want to buy a larger tree or just get rid of their decoration because they are moving out and do not have an opportunity to transport it with them. It is possible to buy a tree which was used by others and still has a good quality.
Finally, you can go for a tree grown specifically for the purpose of being cut before Christmas or chose a living tree in a pot which can be moved to the ground after celebration.