Transitioning To A Vegan Home
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Q: What do you do with the meat and cheese in the fridge when you go vegan? What do you do with all your leather, fur, wool, and silk? What do you do with all the cosmetics that were tested on animals?
A: As a new vegan, you have a lot of options for how to transition your home from a nonvegan home to a vegan home. Consider these ideas below; mix and match as you please:
Option 1 – Keep the things you have until they run out/ wear out and replace them with vegan items.
Option 2 – Give things away. You can give things to friends, neighbors, co-workers, or you can give them to charity thrift stores, homeless shelters, or food banks. You can even donate things like leather and fur to animal shelters where they will likely find a fantastic use for the materials in a way that helps animals instead of hurting them.
Option 3 – Sell the items. Have a garage sale or put the items on ebay. Then you can either keep the money or give the money to a charity.
Option 4 – Destroy the items. When it comes to things like perishable food and partially used cosmetics, it might be best to simply toss it. If you can, recyle or compost as much as possible.
Option 5 – Get creative. Make a display for a library wherein you show a pair of leather shoes and you describe the process of how a cow becomes a shoe (including, of course, how the leather industry is not a byproduct of the meat industry, how the tanning process is environmentally destructive, etc.). Or you could make animal-rights themed art using up your non-cruelty-free cosmetics.
Readers, do you have any other ideas? What did you do with your old stuff when you went vegan?
I still have a leather sofa. It really starts up a great conversation with non vegan visitors. It helps me tell the story that the skins are not a bi-product. I’ve donated many items to our humane society which has a resale shop. I’ve sold a leather jacket on eBay and will use that money ($30) toward buying ticket to CJ Acres “Wine with the swine event” next month. The journey gets easier every day.
When I went veg, I cooked all the meat I had left and brought it to an end of year party for people I’d never see again. When I went Vegan, I replaced my shoes as I needed them. Got new sneakers, when winter came I got new boots. Most things I just gave away.
I am letting things such as non-vegan soap and makeup run out, then replacing with vegan items. I gave away or used up my non-vegan food when I made the switch from vegetarian to vegan. I went through my clothing, and have only 2 pairs of leather shoes left – I’ll sell/donate them when I find replacements. I certainly don’t want to waste anything, and the money I would spend tossing and re-purchasing everything at once would be better suited to a charity donation.