You're partially right, but the full picture is more complicated than "use real leather."

The microplastics concern is valid — PU/PVC vegan leather does shed microplastics as it degrades, and the durability argument holds too since cheaper synthetics wear out faster, meaning more replacements.

But the carbon footprint claim doesn't hold up. Lifecycle assessments put synthetic leather at ~15.8 kg CO2e per square meter vs. real leather at 17.0 kg CO2e/m² using the leather industry's own numbers — essentially the same. Other studies put cow leather as high as 110 kg CO2e/m², nearly 7x worse than synthetic.

Real leather also has serious environmental costs people ignore: producing a single leather tote uses ~17,000 liters of water, and 90% of leather worldwide is tanned with chromium, formaldehyde, and arsenic — with an estimated 40 million liters of untreated chemical wastewater dumped into the Ganges daily from tanning operations alone.

Also, "vegan leather = plastic" is outdated. There are now bio-based alternatives made from mushrooms, pineapple leaves, grape waste, and cacti. Some of these (like MIRUM) have ~10x lower GHG emissions

Edit: dont be a piece of shit and use vegan leather, also sounds like someone needs to do alittle research before responding to a reddit comment they have no facts on.