Putting real fur down a runway in 2019 is almost guaranteed to cause some backlash. After the ’90s saw a wave of animal activists calling real fur immoral, with Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford posing nude for PETA for its “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign in 1994, we are well into the faux-fur era. But now there’s another pressing debate: Is faux fur worse for the environment?

Brands such as Prada, Burberry, Versace, Michael Kors, Armani, and Stella McCartney have all taken a stand against using real fur. The British Fashion Council has even banned animal fur from every fashion show during London Fashion Week, and this year San Francisco became the largest U.S. city to ban fur sales. But we haven’t stopped wearing fur look-alikes. As people turn to faux fur, the market is producing realistic-looking alternatives. The issue then becomes that most are made from synthetic materials.

Plastic has become a highly discussed issue in our climate and ocean’s health. Dune Ives, executive director of ocean conservation nonprofit Lonely Whale, explains: “Annually, more than 100,000 marine animals die as a result of plastic ingestion or entanglement. By 2050, the ocean is expected to contain more plastic than fish.” There’s also new research to show that we may be ingesting the equivalent of a credit card a week of microplastics (small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long) as they seep into what we eat and the products we use.

Synthetic clothing is a major culprit contributing to the microplastics issue. A 2016 study found that synthetic jackets released an average of 1,174 milligrams of microfibers when washed. Combine this with the fact that 99% of plastic is produced from fossil fuels (and is therefore contributing to our climate crisis) and you have a case for being pro-fur purely because it’s biodegradable. Especially considering that faux fur, like real fur, sheds.

Ashley Byrne, campaign specialist at PETA, thinks animal and human rights issues must be addressed when looking at the sustainable practices in fashion. However, with animal rights aside, she says real fur is still far worse for the environment. “Eighty-five percent of the fur industry’s skins come from animals living captive in fur factory farms,” she says. “I think most of us are aware now of the devastating impact that factory farming has on the environment. The factory farms used to raise animals for their fur are no different.”

Byrne explains that carbon dioxide emissions caused by farming animals for fur, the harmful impact fur has on waterways (with agriculture being the number-one culprit behind water contamination in the U.S.), the toxic chemicals used in fur dressing and dyeing, and the “massive amounts of waste and feces” all weigh up to be “a nightmare for the environment.” In contrast, she believes the faux-fur industry has the potential to become more sustainable. “While faux fur keeps improving, [real fur] is always going to be the same,” Byrne says. “It's always going to be toxic and it's always going to involve this process that is very dirty and very cruel.”

One study, which was commissioned by a pair of animal rights organizations, backs up PETA’s claims, saying that a fur coat is worse for the environment because one kilogram of mink fur has a higher negative environmental impact than producing one kilogram of other textiles in 17 of the 18 environmental categories, which include issues such as climate change and eutrophication. But there’s also a competing study, commissioned by the International Fur Trade Federation, finding that mink is less toxic and more sustainable if you plan on keeping it for 30 years or more.