Earth-Trashing Animal-Skin Interiors Undermine Automaker's Efforts to Protect the Environment

Bloomfield Hills, Mich. - Today, PETA dispatched a letter to David Schembri, president of Smart USA, the company that just introduced the Daimler AG-owned line of purportedly Earth-friendly subcompact Smart cars in the U.S. PETA is urging Schembri to stop using leather for the cars' steering wheels and gearshift knobs and to stop offering leather seats in its Passion model.

In the letter, PETA points out that using leather--the production of which is devastating to the environment and human health, not to mention the animals who are killed for their skins--undermines the environmentally beneficial features that make the tiny gas-savers appealing to socially conscious buyers. Leather products are loaded with formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, chromium, alkalis, solvents, and biocides. Leather-production facilities destroy nearby waterways and communities. Producing leather also requires vast amounts of natural resources and causes dangerous occupational-health hazards in the tanning process. Additionally, raising animals for leather--or their flesh--uses vast quantities of fossil fuels and is a leading cause of greenhouse-gas emissions.