Recycled vs. Virgin Goose down.

This is something that has been confusing me a bit. 

1. Puffers with recycled down seem a bit cheaper
2. Higher end jackets (I only checked the Rab range) typically have virgin (ethical) down.
3. Cleaning and chemical processing is known to strip the down of its natural oils and potentially make it brittle
4. Recycled down is probably a mix of goose and duck down.
5. Recycled only goes upto 700-750 fill power. 

Is is valid to assume that recycled down has a higher chance of being lower quality? Especially in light of point 3.

"Virgin" down is inherently unethical, recycled is questionable given that any increase in the demand for down encourages more production of it. Ducks and geese are bred specifically so we can take their feathers, often abused and mistreated, and then they are typically murdered at a fraction of their lifespan anyway. While a synthetic jacket certainly isn't perfect considering it's basically made of plastic, it's a whole lot better than stealing feathers from some poor birds. It's worth considering whether the slight perceived benefits you may get from a down jacket are worth the death and suffering these innocent, sentient animals go through. Same goes for wool, fur, and leather.

Jacob Ward wrote:

"Virgin" down is inherently unethical, recycled is questionable given that any increase in the demand for down encourages more production of it. Ducks and geese are bred specifically so we can take their feathers, often abused and mistreated, and then they are typically murdered at a fraction of their lifespan anyway. While a synthetic jacket certainly isn't perfect considering it's basically made of plastic, it's a whole lot better than stealing feathers from some poor birds. It's worth considering whether the slight perceived benefits you may get from a down jacket are worth the death and suffering these innocent, sentient animals go through. Same goes for wool, fur, and leather.

Isn't the whole point of ethical down that it is plucked from birds killed for their meat?

How do you know the geese were virgins?

John Clark wrote:

How do you know the geese were virgins?

You goose them... its all in the response. When you know... you know.
So how we gonna kick it? Gonna kick it goose down!

Not positive what they do elsewhere, but in my part of the country farmers don’t kill their sheep just to shear them for wool. I’ll grant that you have to kill a creature to get leather or a fur pelt, but killing sheep for wool is about as absurd as killing your chicken to get an egg… the farmers I know have a bit more sense than that.

Y C wrote:

Isn't the whole point of ethical down that it is plucked from birds killed for their meat?

I can't imagine a way to call that ethical personally, paying someone for a product of needlessly killing others for our taste pleasure. I think the ethical thing to do is to get our food and clothing from sources that don't exploit animals.

TThurman wrote:

Not positive what they do elsewhere, but in my part of the country farmers don’t kill their sheep just to shear them for wool. I’ll grant that you have to kill a creature to get leather or a fur pelt, but killing sheep for wool is about as absurd as killing your chicken to get an egg… the farmers I know have a bit more sense than that.

Sheep have been artificially bred to grow way way more wool than is healthy or natural for them. By buying wool, we contribute to the demand for more sheep to be bred this way. In addition, the vast majority of sheep are killed long before their natural lifespan. 

Also not to get off topic but because you brought it up, 30,000 baby male chickens are killed every single hour in america by farmers. Because they aren't profitable to the egg industry, almost all of them are gassed, crushed, blended, or suffocated within the first hour of their life. Same deal with chickens as well; they have been artificially bred to lay way more eggs than is healthy, and they almost never get to live out their natural lifespans either. These issues are still present on "organic" or "free range" labeled eggs, or whatever other label they put on to make us not feel guilty for the harm we cause by eating animal products.

The sustainable solution is simple.  Get your meat and leather needs from free range people.  Ed Gein was an unsung eco-warrior.  I’ll leave the ethics debate to others.

Jacob Ward wrote:

I can't imagine a way to call that ethical personally, paying someone for a product of needlessly killing others for our taste pleasure. I think the ethical thing to do is to get our food and clothing from sources that don't exploit animals.

I agree. I don't eat goose myself. 

There is however a large enough market for goose meat. Better to use the down of the dead birds than burn/bury it.

TThurman wrote:

Not positive what they do elsewhere, but in my part of the country farmers don’t kill their sheep just to shear them for wool. I’ll grant that you have to kill a creature to get leather or a fur pelt, but killing sheep for wool is about as absurd as killing your chicken to get an egg… the farmers I know have a bit more sense than that.

Sheep are shorn with clippers. That's pretty decent and the sheep feel lighter too. 

Before responsible down sourcing was enforced, it was common to manually immobilise parent geese and forcibly pluck their down and then let them free again. Almost always led to skin injuries, serious injuries in some cases, loads of traumatized birds too. 

After RDS, afaik, they pluck of the down of geese that are killed for meat.

I'm a little surprised to hear plastics being out forward as an ethical alternative to natural materials, given both the rampant environmental destruction caused by the oil industry as well as the nefarious effects of micro plastic contamination on humans, animals, and the environment. Is it really better to support the largest driver of global warming, and the wars and destruction dealt in the pursuit of oil, over farming?

Isaac Mann-Silverman wrote:

I'm a little surprised to hear plastics being out forward as an ethical alternative to natural materials, given both the rampant environmental destruction caused by the oil industry as well as the nefarious effects of micro plastic contamination on humans, animals, and the environment. Is it really better to support the largest driver of global warming, and the wars and destruction dealt in the pursuit of oil, over farming?

It tracks if you think about it. More wars over oil ultimately drives down the number of people on the planet and therefore fewer animals consumed for taste pleasure.  Increased global warming obviously means everybody is warm all of the time and the demand for wool and down drops off entirely.  Heck, kinda makes me wonder if Big Plastic is actually the driving force behind PETA...Too bad for the sheep though. Those extra heavy wool coats that we will no longer shear are gonna get toasty with all that warm weather...

Isaac Mann-Silverman wrote:

I'm a little surprised to hear plastics being out forward as an ethical alternative to natural materials, given both the rampant environmental destruction caused by the oil industry as well as the nefarious effects of micro plastic contamination on humans, animals, and the environment. Is it really better to support the largest driver of global warming, and the wars and destruction dealt in the pursuit of oil, over farming?

Also, leather, wool and down tend to be way more durable than their synthetic counterpart, further reducing their environmental impact because they last longer. 

It's a really complicated debate and however way you argue there are some serious pros and cons.

For me, the most ethical product is the one that has been produced to the best practiced the industry can currently come up with, and that lasts the longest. At the moment, that's either recycled or ethically sourced down. Same goes for leather and wool.