As a vegetarian, would it be bad to buy a recycled-leather handbag?
I personally feel it is NOT okay to wear eat meat,leather or use leather products unless YOU personally are prepared to go out and kill, skin, butcher the carcass and tan the hide. I DON’T feel it is okay to buy leather products, even secondhand if you are a vegetarian- you’re saying ‘it’s not okay to eat it but it is okay to wear it’ If you are going to wear leather you should eat meat. Simple as that. I’m a meat eater, but in a way I agree very strongly with the vegan ethos- I feel people have become very disconnected with the food they eat and because of this, treatment of animals raised for eating has become cruel and beyond tolerance. I AM prepared to hunt for, kill, butcher and prep the meat I eat and the leather I wear. I may need help with some of the steps as I do not have the upper body strength needed but I am prepared to do it.
Go for it if you want it. Justify it anyway you want; your beliefs should not be dependent on the thoughts of others. If you feel it is Moral, you are the only person that has to live with the decision. The animal is already dead. If you buy the handbag, the person that made it will receive compensation for their work, and as the leather is recycled, it will not just be going to rot in a landfill somewhere. On the other hand, if you don’t buy it, someone else probably will and you are out of a handbag you apparently do want. I am trying to see it from your point of view (which I don’t share, but can respect) and I can’t see a downside for you buying the bag. Seeing part of an already dead animal that still has utility going to waste, unused in a landfill is not a Moral superiority to you gaining that utility and (if this matters to you) off-setting the resources that would be used to obtain a different handbag.
