veganism and the environment

I always gave people shit about not being vegan, but being concerned with the environment. Second hand leather, silk, wool etc. would send me on a tirade about giving a shit about anything. It's embarrassing that it took years to realize that being vegan doesn't always mean you are doing the right thing. So many non animal products are made from PVC other shitty materials that are more environmentally hostile than using second hand leather or some other animal product. I wish we could find another alternative, but it seems that we always find a substitute that is more harmful in some way. I wish that organic cotton or hemp would suffice during the Western New York winters, but that's not the case. We use rubber muck boots, plastic rain coats and pants, synthetic gloves, and all sorts of other materials that are killing the planet as a whole. I don't want to wear animals and I would never buy them. How do we go about this?