Did you know that some people actually wear the skin of dead animals for things like clothes, shoes, and belts? It’s true. They call the skin “leather,” and here are three reasons why it’s SO yucky!

1. Stealing an animal’s skin is cruel.

This one’s pretty obvious, right? Most of the leather in the U.S. comes from India. A lot of times, people force the cows there to walk hundreds of miles in the heat with no food or water.

People even break the cows’ tails and rub chili peppers in their eyes to make them keep moving. Then they’re killed for their skin.

2. Leather has dangerous chemicals on it.

Making leather hurts animals, and it’s also very dangerous to our bodies and the environment.

Skin from dead animals rots, which means that it starts to break down like any living being who dies. To make sure that this doesn’t happen, companies put lots of poisonous chemicals on it. These get into the soil and water supplies, putting the people around them in danger. Many of these people are just kids.

3. It’s someone’s skin!

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that wearing someone else’s skin is wrong—and just plain gross.

Plus, cows aren’t the only animals who are killed for their skin. In China, where a lot of the world’s leather comes from, some dogs are killed so that their skin can be turned into leather shoes, belts, and other things, too.

In South Africa, ostriches are killed so that their “fancy” skin can be used by fashion designers around the world.

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There’s absolutely no reason to wear leather (or any other animal parts!), since there are tons of different vegan materials out there—like cotton and polyester. All you have to do is ask your parents to double check the labels on your clothes before they buy them, in order to make sure that you’re not getting animal skins.