Nee Hung, Trend Hunter

Paradoxical Fur Ads - "Fur is Green" Campaign
I have read that in 1992 the Dutch Advertising Standards Authority ruled that fur apparel advertised as “ecological” was improperly and misleadingly labeled. In 1991 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fined 6 fur processing firms $2.2 million for the pollution they caused. The EPA stated that the waste from fur processing plants "may cause respiratory problems, and are listed as possible carcinogens." What I also don't understand is why fur is always compared to fake fur. The alternative to a cruel product is any and every fabric there is. Why not compare fur with cotton? If we must compare fur with fake fur, a 1979 study by the Scientific Research Laboratory at Ford Motor Company compared the amount of energy required to produce real versus synthetic fur coats. A synthetic fur coat was found to require 120,300 BTU (British ThermalUnits), which is approximately equal to the amount of useful energy in one gallon of gasoline(128,000 BTU). A coat made from trapped animals required 433,000 BTU, and a coat made from cage-raised animals required a staggering 7,965,800 BTU—66 times more energy than what is needed for a fake fur. This study took into consideration the feed required for cage-raised animals and the transportation, skinning, scraping, drying, tanning, and dyeing of pelts. The production of a wild caught fur coat uses 3 times more energy than the production of a synthetic jacket, and studies have found that the production of a fur coat uses 20 times more fossil fuels than the production of a synthetic product, primarily because of the processing of the pelts, feed production, transporting of the pelts to the processor to the auction house to the wholesaler and retailer.

---