Maggie's Musings on living ethically - sort of

Maggie Hall
5 hours ago
7 min read

By Maggie Hall

Maggie is a retired teacher of speech and drama, a former Chair of Brighton Humanists, a member of the Humanists UK Dialogue Network, and a Humanists UK School Speaker. In this article she considers the delights and difficulties of trying to live ethically.

Humanists believe that this is the one life that we know we have and therefore we need to make the very best of it, both for ourselves and others. The same applies to our planet. We know there is no Planet B, so it is vital that we do all we can to preserve this our only home. This means trying to live according to those humanist values and ethics, but living an ethical life is much easier said than done.

For instance, because animal agriculture is a significant contributor to the climate crisis, wherever possible I try to avoid using animal derived products. I have found little difficulty in following a plant-based diet. It’s when I come to thinking about the other things we all use in our everyday lives that it’s sometimes not so easy.

Fraught footwear

Take shoes for example. Naturally, I want shoes that are not made of leather. That’s actually quite easy. I can buy a pair of trainers that have a fabric upper and a rubber sole. But what glues those two elements together? Until recently I didn’t realise that traditional animal glues are still sometimes used in the shoe industry. So it’s not enough just to buy shoes made of fabric and rubber, I need to make sure that if I’m looking for vegan shoes, they have to actually be advertised as vegan.

But then I got to wondering what non-animal glues are used in shoe making? A quick Google search turned up the information that most modern shoes sold in the UK, even some vegan ones, use synthetic, petroleum-based adhesives (such as neoprene or polyurethane). These products are, of course, derived from crude oil and natural gas, both of which we need to wean ourselves off if we are to have any hope of avoiding climate disaster. It’s not all bad news as there are some vegan brands which use plant-based or water-based glues, but it takes an awful lot of homework to find out which ones they are.

Bagging an eco-bag

However, shoes are not the only items traditionally made of leather. Suppose I need a new bag or purse? Those made of PVC or other plastics are off the menu for the same reason as plastic-based footwear. Bags are not too difficult as there are plenty of very nice fabric ones around with no leather fastenings. I have three of them. I had to shop around online to find a purse which was made neither of animal skin or plastic. I was eventually delighted to find a rather beautiful one made of teak leaf leather. It really does look and feel like tan coloured leather, but you can still see the pattern of the leaf veins in it. I also found a small coin purse made of cork, another popular leather alternative.

Dressing not to kill

Clothes are another problem. Once upon a time, all clothes were made of natural fabrics and were quite expensive to buy, so most people only had a very small wardrobe of garments, which they looked after. They were not replaced until they wore out. When they did, they were recycled, either to be used as cleaning rags or collected by the rag man and used to make inferior cloth (‘shoddy’) sold at very low prices to the very poor.

Modern clothing just doesn’t wear out. Most of it is made from synthetic fibres (petroleum-based again). This means that most of us eventually replace items just because we’re sick of them, they’ve gone out of fashion, or we just want something new. ‘Fast fashion’ is the term used for the rapid production of high volumes of clothing, mimicking luxury trends at low prices to drive high-volume, disposable consumption. This not only causes significant environmental damage but is notorious for worker exploitation and enormous amounts of textile wastage.

Fortunately, there is now a considerable backlash against the fast fashion industry, and buying second-hand has actually become trendy, with online buying and selling platforms such as Vinted and Thrifted (with the wonderful slogan F*ck fast fashion). You can also buy and sell items on eBay, and both Oxfam and Barnardos have online charity shops. Alternatively, you can always just walk into your local charity shop, donate your old items and buy pre-loved ones, helping out a charity at the same time and enabling you to feel virtuous twice over.

Last January I made a New Year’s resolution not to buy any new clothes for a whole year. I have actually managed to stick to it, except for a couple of items I bought from wildlife trusts, which don’t count as they’re a charity and the items were made from natural fabrics.

Unhealthy fibre

So now I’m feeling great about my eco-friendly fashion choices, but wait – most of these second-hand purchases are still made from synthetic fabrics. Washing these in my washing machine is contributing to the increasing problem of microfibre pollution, which affects both environmental and human health. I have always eschewed microfibre cleaning materials, using those made from natural materials instead, but now I have to worry about shedding microfibres from my clothes.

This is a problem I have only begun to wrestle with very recently, and one I am currently researching to see what I can do about it. I never use fabric softeners (white vinegar is a natural alternative), and I don’t have a dryer anymore, so I don’t use dryer sheets either – those disposable sheets added to tumble dryers to soften clothes and reduce static. And there are, it seems, other things we can do. One suggestion I’ve seen is to wash synthetic fabrics in a mesh laundry bag, so that’s the next thing on the ethical living agenda.

Also, small items can be washed by hand, or you can use a gentle cycle with cold water in the machine to reduce shedding. I already wash everything at 20 degrees but haven’t tried a full wash on cold so that’s another experiment to try.

When my son, who lives in Japan, visited with his family a couple of years ago, my daughter-in-law was a bit flummoxed to encounter a machine with temperature settings on it. In Japan most washing machines only wash on cold. They don’t even have a connection for hot water. True, water in Japan is much softer than where I live and dissolves detergents easily. However, since I use soap nuts – a natural, plant-based alternative to detergent – I’m less reliant on heat or water softness for effective washing.

Ditching the plastic

On the plastics front generally, I think I’m doing OK. Plastic brushes and scourers are banned from my kitchen. The brushes are wood and bristle and I use copper cloths instead of scourers. Copper is biodegradable. They last for ages and when they do show signs of wear I cut them up and use them in my flowerpots to deter the slugs.

Eco cleaning

With the pollution of our waterways in mind, I try not to put anything harmful down my drain. I no longer use chlorine bleach. I clean the toilet with hydrogen peroxide, which is far less harmful, and use oxygen bleach powder for stain removal in the wash. Bicarbonate of soda, white vinegar, soda crystals, citric acid, salt, liquid soap and borax substitute replace commercial cleaning products. (Actual borax is no longer available in this country.)

My collection of eco-friendly cleaning products

Powering down

Saving electricity takes a bit of thought and effort, especially when it comes to cooking. In my kitchen I have two built-in fan ovens, one very big and the other slightly smaller. This was not my choice as the kitchen came with the house. Microwave ovens and air fryers use much less electricity than those big ovens, but I have very little worktop room in my tiny kitchen so can’t accommodate both. I was therefore pleased to find that there are now combined microwave/air fryers and a brand new one just about squeezes into one corner. I seldom use my big ovens now. Some time ago I switched my energy supplier to one that only uses energy from renewable sources.

No petrol head here

One thing I don’t find at all difficult is not driving a car. I did learn many years ago but found the whole thing so terrifying I eventually gave it up. I have a bus stop on the corner of my road, a mere two minutes’ walk away, and where I live now the buses are quite frequent. A ten-minute bus journey gets me into the centre of town, where there are good shops and a railway station that I can use to get to other paces, including London. If I need bigger shops, I can bus it to Brighton in one direction or Eastbourne in the other. Because I’m now of a certain age, I have my ‘old dear’s bus pass’, so all my bus journeys are entirely free, providing I can take them after 9.30am or at weekends. With the price of petrol now shooting up, along with high insurance premiums and maintenance costs, I don’t think I could actually afford to run a car. I sometimes wonder how anyone can.

Five a day – without plastic?

Food shopping can be a bit of a headache. I have a very convenient local shop which stocks a good variety of fruit and veg, but every bit of it is plastic wrapped. For the life of me I cannot fathom why two baking potatoes have to be presented on a polystyrene tray and wrapped in cling film. There are three grocery shops in town – Morrison’s, the biggest, Tesco and Co-op – but their produce is also mainly wrapped in plastic. There is one small traditional greengrocer’s shop offering loose produce, but it's at the other end of the town centre I need to go to, so it’s a bit inconvenient if I’m short of time. Perhaps I need to make a slightly belated resolution to make the effort to frequent it more often. I do try to grow a few things in my small garden but there’s not room for much and I think back with nostalgia to the time when I had an allotment. It’s amazing how much you can grow if you’re young and fit enough.

Conclusion

Looking back on all this, it looks like a lot of effort, but it really just means ditching old habits and forming new ones. I know many other ordinary people who are also making the effort to be mindful of the health of our planet in their everyday living. Now all we need is to get global commitment from those in power to do the same in their legislatures. But that would be another article.