While it’s impossible to be perfect on our own, when we’re in alliance and doing our best where we can, we can work together to reduce the damage of unethical systems and pressure companies to adopt more ethical practices. So this is a thread to bring those ideas together. What works for you to live more ethically?
I’ll start. My main interests are veganism and zero waste, which naturally go hand in hand with avoiding buying things. Here are some alternatives and resources I personally use that coincide with avoiding Proctor & Gamble:
You can avoid Hellman’s easily by making your own mayo. If the eggs squick you out, or you just want bonus points, I use this vegan garlic mayo recipe. It keeps for weeks and I don’t miss mayo at all. This requires a blender - any kind is fine.
Soap: someone near you makes bars of this that are better quality and sells them for roughly $5, I guarantee it. If not, making it is pretty straightforward as long as you follow instructions carefully and use established recipes. If you want to go custom, you can also use a lye calculator. This one requires an immersion blender.
Breyer’s/ice cream in general: Get yourself some xanthan gum for regular dairy, and add soy lecithin to your list if you want to do vegan ice creams. The xanthan gum inhibits ice crystals for a smooth and creamy texture, and helps with scoopability. Soy lecithin helps emulsify oil and water, so you can use it to bring up the fat content of soy or oat bases to be closer to a heavy cream. Requires a blender.
Gillette: get a safety razor. Mine’s a vintage lady Gillette I got off eBay. You will save so much money on blades it’s not even funny.
Lipton: your local grocery store might have loose leaf tea in the bulk section. If so, try that first. If not and you’re in the U.S., check out Arbor Teas instead. Small business, fair trade, high quality stuff, and the packaging is completely compostable, making it an awesome zero waste choice.
I also found this helpful website for when you do purchase something - it’s UK oriented, but covers a lot of global brands and looks like an excellent starting point for doing a bit of research before buying. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/
Your turn. What works for you? All ideas are welcome, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Let’s make ethical choices accessible.
Your suggestions are great and quite do-able.
Since this space is focussed on actively refusing to support the sponsors of Russia's war on Ukraine, my actions have been to vote with my wallet and to inform businesses that I'm doing so,
Where possible, I choose spend my money on businesses that don't operate in Russia and countries in its axis of evil. Then there's shopping for alternatives to avoid supporting sponsors of Russian invasion. Equally importantly is sharing/communicating these actions both with busineses and within my circle of influcnce (family, freinds, colleagues, shopkeepers, and on SM).
Oooh - I like the idea of informing the businesses you’re doing this. I don’t do that unless I’m reminded to, so I’ll add it to my personal checklist.
Do you have any sources of information you regularly consult to help avoid supporting the war on Ukraine, or places that help you find alternatives? I’d definitely like to be more active in this area.
We created this zine and its sister zine Biz Against Russian Invasion, since most of the information is fragmented. In addition to trawing through news media, I use leave-russia.org and som.yale.edu. Both are sources for this zine.
One effective way is to ask shopowners for alternate brands and tell them why. The message gets passed to the brands we support and to thoe we reject. This method works for online grocery shopping as well.
The Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute has also made it easy to contact companies to tell them to stop doing business in Russia, by providing their contact info at https://www.emailcontactukraine.com/ . We've posted this info in a comment