A purse is an everyday wardrobe staple that can say a lot about the person carrying it.

If you're hoping that yours tells the world you have a classic style—but also care about animal livelihood—vegan leather purses are probably on your radar.

Shopping for the best vegan purses that will spare animals without destroying the environment? We've got those in the bag.

Vegan leather is not made from animals—a win for vegans and those concerned about animal cruelty in the fashion industry. It also avoids some of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with raising livestock.

And while conventional leather often needs to be treated with dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde1, vegan leather doesn't require the preservative. Instead, vegan leather mimics some of the positive qualities of leather—durability, breathability, flexibility, wrinkle-resistance—using materials other than animal skin. So, what are those? What does the "P" in the infamous pleather stand for?

More often than not, vegan leather is made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyurethane (PU). "In other words," Preeti Gopinath, a textile designer and associate professor at Parsons' School of Fashion tells mbg, "it's plastic."

And as we all now know, plastics derived from fossil fuels come with a number of environmental concerns. They are energy-intensive to produce, difficult to responsibly dispose of, and tend to linger in the environment for a long, long time. From this standpoint, vegan leather is not the most sustainable material.

Part of what makes it so difficult to create a truly sustainable vegan leather—one that is petroleum-free and biodegradable—is that it takes chemicals to achieve many of the impressive qualities of leather.

As Gopinath points out, biodegradable fabrics are meant to degrade in sun, wind, and water, yet we want our leather alternatives to stand up to all of these elements when we use them. "We are asking the material to do too many things," she says. "We are asking it to be biodegradable and resist water and sun. If it has to resist all of that, obviously it won't be biodegradable."

At the end of the day, sustainable stylist Cassandra Dittmer agrees that comparing vegan leather to animal leather is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. They're different, and one isn't inherently better than the other from an environmental perspective.

If you are willing to splurge on a vegan purse made mostly from plants, we rounded up some of the best options out there.

They are made using the best and brightest in renewable, plant-based materials, or recycled plastic materials where that isn't possible.

If you're not quite ready to shell out, we also included some more affordable polyurethane (PU) options that are responsibly made and easy to love for life.

Pleather purses are long-lasting. That's a negative if they're sitting in a landfill but a positive if they're sitting in your closet. So if you are going to buy a vegan purse made from plastic material, the best thing you can do is find one you'll want to own for life.

"I will be the first person to say: Use nylon, use polyester, use these synthetics—but only if you're not going to throw them away," Gopinath says.

You'll also want to be careful how you care for your keepsake, as plastic microparticles can be shed in the wash and pollute waterways. Thankfully, this isn't as much of a concern with synthetic purses as it is with, say, bathing suits.

To guide your shopping, Dittmer points out that some vegan leathers made from PVC and PU incorporate recycled materials, like plastic water bottles. Better yet, there are also a number of up-and-coming vegan leather materials that are made from plants and not plastics.

"Piñatex is a common one from pineapple leaf fiber that has made its way to a bunch of big brands," Dittmer says, and leather made from mycelium hides and algae coating are also in development.