UKC

http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/industry/

In reply to M. Edwards:

I Already wouldnt. A Dreadful business.

In reply to M. Edwards:

The solution; ethical down!

As for foie gras (that the article mentions)... far too tasty to not eat Especially on toasted brioche! Came back from France in Dec with 5 tins as xmas presents from people. Yum.

In reply to M. Edwards:

Buy down clothing from a company that cares, like Mountain Equipment?

http://www.thedownproject.me.uk/

In reply to galpinos:

Stop wrecking an argument with a reasoned response will ya.

In reply to M. Edwards:

Jeez! Never realised they're plucked while still alive, that's barbaric. My jacket and sleeping bag are both from Alpkit, so having just seen this thread I thought I'd check their site out to see if they have a stance on the subject. Here's what they say:
https://www.alpkit.com/develop/down-sourcing-2014

In reply to M. Edwards:
Yay! Another person trying to tell me what I should and should not buy. 2 down jackets and 2 down bags so far, and if I feel the need for another, I'll carry on ignoring your tree-hugging hippie crap and buy whatever suits my needs.

Next you'll be trying to stop me eating meat, driving Land Rovers and flying Easyjet. But you'll never take the squeezed baby unicorn tears I fill my waterbottles with!!!

In reply to M. Edwards:

PLEASE do some research before posting stuff like this. Peta are an animal rights group who, quite rightly, brought live plucking to the to the attention of the industry. However, live plucking is not carried out by any of the reputable outdoor brands and Peta have embarrassed themselves numerous times by refusing to cooperate with bodies trying to improve animal welfare. They ain't that nice to animals either, releasing a terrified goose inside the Outdoor Show in Germany in 2012! I wrote some more stuff on the subject here: http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=574055&v=1#x7625067

Live plucking IS barbaric but is NOT knowingly carried out by any of the major manufacturers' supply chains.

In reply to forcan:


LOL. That made me smile

In reply to Mr Fuller:

Not Knowingly Perhaps, but i believe ethical consumer Estimate only a third of down used in outdoor Industry is directly Traceable From inside the EU.

In reply to M. Edwards:

does ethical down fall Naturally From happy geese in moult, or are they Killed?

In reply to crayefish:


The trouble is it's difficult for any manufacturer to be sure where their down comes from. Coleman recently announced that they have stopped producing down products entirely for this reason, some bloggers have wondered if the whole outdoor industry will go this way.

The whole 'ethical consumer' thing is a bit of a minefield in any case. Do you know the conditions under which all your gear was produced? The carbon footprint of the polymers in your primaloft or goretex? The working conditions and quality of life of the labour that produced your smartphone or headtorch? How far do you go?

Andrew.

In reply to planetmarshall:

Good for Coleman.

Hopefully, rest of outdoor industry will join them soon.

Surely we should be more concerned about the working conditions for the humans in the factories in the far East that put the stuff together. DOn't get me wrong, Geese are nice animals. But for me, the priority is to make sure our own species are looked after first

In reply to M. Edwards:

'At the moment, I would say it is almost impossible to buy down products and be sure that they haven’t involved cruelty.' Patagonia´s Isabelle Susini (Environmental manager)

In reply to M. Edwards:

The devil is always in the detail! In other words how far along the supply chain are companies prepared to go before they can cross their hearts and use that extremely fashionable word "knowingly". The recent horse meat scandal, whatever ones views, demonstrated that the more complicated and geographically separated the supply chain, the easier it is to absolve the individual suppliers and retailers from any blame.

This organisation may be just scaremongering tree huggers and the mountain clothing manufacturers squeaky clean. If so a bit more publicity and consumer scrutiny can't be a bad thing. I absolutely agree that the priority should be the working and living conditions of humans. I wonder what these are like for the climbing hardware now manufactured in the far East?

In reply to M. Edwards:

I am going to lock this thread now since it is an example of an incredibly poorly researched post on a controversial topic. There has been a lot of discussion about this topic for the last 4 or 5 years in the outdoor industry and the majority of the well-known brands have taken steps to make sure they only use ethical down. Some links have been posted above. We also posted the article linked to below which gave the story from the perspective of Mountain Equipment.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/news.php?id=5183

Alan