Urban Outfitters’ Leather Sales to Elicit a Black Sludge Dump From PETA
For Immediate Release:
September 8, 2023
Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382
PETA supporters brandishing buckets proclaiming, “Leather Is a Dirty Business,” will gather outside the Urban Outfitters store in the Lincoln Road Shopping District on Tuesday and dump black sludge all over themselves to represent the environmental devastation caused by the leather industry. The action is part of PETA’s campaign calling on all Urban Outfitters Inc. brands to stop selling animal-derived materials—including leather.
When: Tuesday, September 12, 12 noon
Where: 819 Lincoln Rd. (at the intersection with Jefferson Avenue), Miami
PETA supporters cover themselves in black sludge outside an Urban Outfitters store. Photo: PETA
“Cows and calves lead short, miserable lives for leather bags and shoes, which require enormous amounts of energy and dangerous chemicals to produce,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges Urban Outfitters to cater to the growing demand from millennials and Gen Z for sustainable vegan materials that are kind to the planet and leave animals in peace.”
Cows used for leather are castrated and branded and their tails are cut off—all without painkillers—before they’re violently killed. Leather production also destroys the planet: Animal agriculture, which includes the leather industry, is responsible for nearly one-fifth of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, and turning skin into leather requires significant energy and dangerous chemicals, including formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and cyanide-based oils, dyes, and finishes. Sustainable vegan leather can be made from prickly pear cactus, mushrooms, apples, pineapples, and other innovative materials.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.
For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.
