vegetarian/vegan vs all-natural

This is sooo frustrating for me! The closer I get to a vegan diet/lifestyle, the more problems I am having finding all natural options. Why can't the two go together? A few examples lately:

our comforter - I wanted suede, but didn't want REAL suede. And I wanted down, but not the cruelty that went with it. So my bed is now covered in polyester... a nasty industrial synthetic.

shoes - Either I get some plastickey biproductey thing, or I get leather. Another vegan no-no.

and wood finish - I have an antique table that needs refinishing, and my options are either bad-for-the-environment chemicals, or something that's all natural but completely nonvegan.

How do y'all do it???
love,
mom

 

do what you can with waht you have. That is all we can do.

 

Polyester is an *excellent* substitute for suede. I have an overshirt that I wear to meetings and things, which both looks and feels almost identical to suede, and has a perfect velvetty fuzzy feel and reflecty surface -- and yet it is 100% polyester.

Also, you should look into rayon.

Here is a complete list of synthetic fabrics complete with a detailed encyclopedia entry for each one (Wikipedia rocks)!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Synthetic_fibers

 

not a vegan, but was a veggie for a long time...

I also wear recycled animal fibers. I actually seek out wool sweaters from thrift stores for my knitting purposes (unravel the sweater and re-knit it into something else). I also wear recycled leather, as in jackets and cowboy boots... figure the cow has been dead for 30 years at this point, so it's not something I am directly responsiable for (which is how i would feel if i bought it new)

I agree with the poster who said "make due with what you have"... its a good philosophy for life in general!

 

I would say yes, it is okay, for two major reasons:

#1) Petrochemical use doesn't result in cruelty or death to an animal.

#2) Petrochemical use in a product means that those petrochemicals are not being used in a one-use process -- for example, as a fuel. If you make, say, a chair out of a petrochemical, that chair might last for 10 years, but your gas tank won't last a week. I don't know of any alternatives that don't use petrochemicals, so to my knowledge, this is the most efficient and least wasteful way to use them.

 

I have to agree with drumminmama - I don't feel that synthetic alternatives to animal-derived goods are necessarily better. I'm a dietary vegan, and am committed to reducing the amount of cruelty my consumption in other areas engenders as well, but I also value living as lightly on the Earth as possible. Substituting plastics for leather and the like seems like exchanging one undesirable circumstance for another. I hung on to all my leather, wool and other non-vegan goods (and have taken a lot of heat about it from other vegans) because I see no reason not to use what I already have. I have some very good quality items that well cared for should last 20 years or more. If I need or want something I don't already have, I try and get it used. My household does a lot of freecycling, yard sales, etc. If I need to buy something new, I try and make the best decision possible in terms of what I feel to be the optimal balance of compassionate choice and ecological responsibility.

 

Thanks everyone I guess that's kind of what I've been coming to also. More secondhand shopping, and weigh each choice individually.

Guess I'm never gonna be a full vegan after all. Oh well

We use freecycle for just about everything. With a husband that works 72+ hours every week, I work hard NOT to spend any more money than is absolutely necessary. But then there are things like clothes (yeah, I ebay a lot) that are tough to find in a boy's slimfit size and those darn shoes that just never fit unless they're new.

Hikaru I understand what you're saying, but I have allergies & sensitivities to several of the chemicals used to make various synthetic products. Some synthetics make me very ill while others just make me feel under the weather. And MOST of those same chemicals cause problems with runoff, groundwater pollution & air quality. I guess that's where I have the problem. If it's a choice between an animal's life or a darn-near irreversible effect on the environment, that animal starts looking rather expendable to me.
love,
mom

 

It's totally understandable if you have allergies to some of those products. But I'm afraid a crusade against the use of petrochemicals in making synthetic products is not going to do Jack (tm) to solve the problems of air pollution, runoff, groundwater pollution, and various other environmental concerns. Even as we speak, power plants churn 7,000 pounds of mercury into the air.

Believe me, I am not happy about this or anything else -- over last summer, I worked for a group called Clean Water Action, canvassing neighbourhoods and getting people to write letters to their politicians and make donations to help clean up the environment. These issues aside, petrochemical use in industry is not the problem -- industry itself is the problem. Big business is why petrochemical use causes these problems, not the actual petrochemicals themselves. If there is something that must be changed, it is industry.

You do make a valid point though -- a million dead animals, in a healthy environment, will produce a million more animals, but a polluted environment will eventually make this impossible.

Sometimes, I feel as if the problems are so numerous that I can't keep up with them all.

 

eeee... Well, that's certainly not the way I look at it, what I said about making choices notwithstanding. I never see either as expendable, and even the best choice I can make often feels regrettable because it's never perfect, it never is harm-free. It's not as though adopting this philosophy of "best choice" has made it any easier to make those choices, but after thinking it through it's the best I can come up with as far as what makes most sense in going about our lives. It's an oft-repeated saw that we can never, regardless of what we do, engage in actions that completely bypass the harm of other living beings. Every time you brush against your skin, you're visiting apocalyptic horrors on any number of bacteria and other microorganisms. Walking, gardening... it's all destructive and devastating depending on where you are in the food chain. So I just attempt to practice as much non-harm as possible - and extend that principle to the Earth as well as the creatures that live upon it.

 

Leather processing is no more environmentally friendly than synthetics processing. Leather tanning operations use nasty, caustic, environmentally damaging chemicals too. You don't gain anything from an environmental standpoint by purchasing new leather, and you may even lose ground because you are supporting the incredibly filthy factory farm system that does a gigantic amount of environmental damage from rainforest deforestation to ground water contamination to the devistation of ancient aquifers to greenhouse emissions, to massive herbicide and pesticide soil contamination. I could go on and on.

The single best thing you can do for the environment is go Vegan, and that includes not purchasing new animal products for clothing. FWIW, I don't necessarily think it's unvegan to purchase leather goods second hand, but I do think it's a bad idea to wear any animal products if you're going to be vocal, becuase you're just giving your opponents ammunition.

 

Yeah, I guess that just didn't come out quite the way I meant. It's just that animals can & will keep reproducing, but the earth takes sooooo long to heal it/herself that it just seems to be the "better" idea.
love,
mom

 

This is an excellent thread. These exact issues were the ones that turned me from being vegan for five years to veg then on to subsistance hunter. I have recently given up all meats again once again becoming vegetarian, but I have the hardest time substituting petro-chemical products for certain animal products. Through all the years, subsistance hunting etc., I have attempted to be all natural and I really don't like poly and man made fibres.

I disagree. The petroleum industry industry is a huge contributor to the devastation of ecosystems.

 

I wear second hand leather, but having said that, I don't wear large pieces of leather because it creeps me out a lot (even before I went Vegan). I wear shoes or belts.

 

I perfer natural to synthetic knock offs. I shop at thrift stores quite often, and picked up the most amazing mink fur hat. Its so beautiful, and it is antique. However I would never buy a fake fur item, nor would I buy real fur new.