ethical living

Suli Box February 2019

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I wrote about my previous and first Suli box here. But if you haven’t read that Suli stands for SUstainable LIving and is a subscription box bringing you lots of eco products that you may not be aware of.

My box arrived in an extra royal mail bag as it was leaking and smelling strongly of patchouli. Unfortunately my first product of bath salts from Handmade Haven had leaked out and there were none remaining in the packet.

I contacted Suli box about this on Saturday night expecting a reply on Monday but they replied within half an hour offering to send out some more on Monday or including it in my next box. I opted for my next box as I didn’t want to increase the amount of packaging used.

The next product in my box was this kitchen cleanser from Mangle and Wringer. I have been using more natural cleaning products so I was interested in this. It’s rosemary and eucalyptus scented and smells amazing. I used it on my brand new hob which was only installed this week so not majorly greasy but it did do a good job.

Lastly this month we have these bamboo socks from Thought. All my socks seem to be developing holes at the moment so these are very welcome and the design is super cute!

Have you tried any new eco products recently? What are your faves? Let me know in the comments below.

Plumes x

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Suli Box February 2019

Volunteer Day @ Tower Hill – Jan 2019

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My friends Cathy and John took part in a volunteer day at Tower Hill Stables Animal Sanctuary in Essex. This is another great way to give back to the animals and you get to have lots of cuddles too! It is always helps up refocus and remember what we are fighting for in our activism.

Over to Cathy to hear what her and John got up to.

“Tower Hill Sanctuary is run by Fiona Oakes (distance runner), her partner Martin and mother Meg and is in the process of relocating, today my husband John and I attended a volunteer work party at the new location that at the moment houses horses and cows, eventually when the new place is ready the other animals will come as well.

Today we painted fences, shovelled manure and helped muck out, it was a pleasure to help out for such a great cause. We made friends with the animals especially one beautiful horse that didn’t want me to paint the fence, she wanted me to fuss her and pull up long grass for her to eat, and so I painted with her head on my shoulder.

It’s so nice to spend time with vegan activists and get stuck in. We can’t wait for the next volunteer day.

Cathy x”

If you would like to take part in the next volunteer day check out Tower Hill Stables on Facebook. If you’re not in Essex see where your local sanctuary is and find out what you can do to help out.

Plumes x

Volunteer Day @ Tower Hill – Jan 2019

A Weekend Of Activism – January 2019

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Veganuary is very food post heavy due to all the new products and menus coming out but it’s also important to highlight the vegan/animal rights activism that is taking place.

On Friday Havering Vegan Action (of which I am part of the admin team) took part in our regular Earthlings Experience event where we show footage from UK farms and slaughterhouses and start conversations with members of the public who stop to watch. We had some productive conversations with many people taking away more information to look into.

On Saturday I took part in the No Whaling March to The Japanese Embassy. Japan have decided to exit the IWC agreement and start commercial whaling again after originally signing the agreement in 1982. You can sign the petition to ask the Japanese Government to reconsider this here.

On Sunday I took part in the CAGED NW (Campaign Against Greyhound Exploitation and Death Nationwide) protest against the GBGB (Greyhound Board of Great Britain) Annual Awards Ceremony at the Park Plaza Hotel at Westminster.

I was charged with handing out leaflets to the public (so I still have my voice!) many of people I spoke to were anti-racing and supported the protest, others were tourists who were interested in the issue as it was something they weren’t aware of. I also spoke to some of the residents who lived opposite the hotel. I encouraged them to ask the hotel to not host these awards I’m future if they were bothered by the noise of the protest.

There were other events this weekend that I couldn’t make it to, there is so much going on!

If you’re a new vegan (or not) and you would like to get more involved in activism look on Facebook for events taking place in your area. If you have any questions reach out to the organisers and they will happily put your mind at ease.

Let me know what activism you have been getting up to in the comments below.

Plumes x

A Weekend Of Activism – January 2019

The Suli Box

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The Suli Box (short for SUstainable LIving) is an eco-friendly subscription box to help you reduce waste and your plastic use.

I originally bought this box a few weeks ago but as we moved shortly after it’s taken me a while to retrieve it from the mountain of boxes we are still sorting out.

Like many subscription boxes you can choose how frequently you want to receive it and can choose from different size boxes. I’ve decided to go for every other month and the size that has 4 items.

The box uses natural straw for packaging the items which is a first for me, although it did end up getting everywhere! I thought the personalised message inside the box was a really cute touch.

The first items we have are some natural chewing gum from Chewsy.

I’m not a regular chewer of gum, however I do love my garlic so it’s handy to have in your handbag! The gum comes in little cubes and the flavour lasts a long while.

Next up we have a turtle bag. I already have one of these in green so it was nice to get a different colour. These bags are really strong and I love the style of them. Another great one to keep in the handbag. This was an item that I’ll be picking the straw out of for a while!

Next we have some washing powder which I’ll be interested to try out. I’m interested in trying more natural cleaning products and things like the Suli box are a great way of trying out and finding new products you weren’t aware of.

Lastly we have this delightful little package…

Which was some ginger bread soap. I do love a proper bar of soap but they do tend to take quite a while for me to get through so this will stay in the cupboard until I get through my current bar.

If you fancy trying the Suli Box out you can buy a one off box or if you subscribe you can cancel at any time.

Do you subscribe to any eco boxes? What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Plumes x

The Suli Box

I made my own oat milk!

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I’ve been resisting the urge to become “that kind of vegan” for a while now but seeing as I have made my own but cheese for a few years now I knew with the onset of zero waste making my own plant milk would be next on the menu!

I did a quick search online and I simply needed 100g of oats and 750ml of water.

I buy my organic oats plastic free from Zero Waste Club. So this milk is truly zero waste and costs 40p rather than the £1.60 that oat milk goes for in the supermarket.

The process is pretty straightforward.

1. Soak oats for at least 30 minutes

2. Rinse oats and discard soaking water

3. Blend oats and water together

4. Strain through cheese cloth

5. Transfer to bottle

I bought this gorgeous glass bottle in Sainsbury’s to use for my homemade milk.

You can use one litre of water if you like your milk a little thinner but I loved the mouth feel of this when I had it in a latte.

Have you considered making your own plant milk? I think I’m going to try hemp next as I can get hemp seeds on Zero Waste Club too. If you give it a try let me know how you get on in the comments below.

Plumes x

I made my own oat milk!

A week of animal activism

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I’ve had a week standing up for the animals. On Monday I attended Essex Pig Save (which I wrote about here). Save’s are a good way to see the condition of animals in your local area and reinforces your conviction to fight for the animals.

On Tuesday I joined The Humane League to do some craftivism outside McDonalds in Leicester Square. The point of this was to encourage McDonalds to sign up to the Better Chicken Committment (which you can read about on THL’s website) to improve the welfare of millions of chickens each year.

On Friday I took part in our local Earthlings event in Romford. We’ve had a few weeks off so it was good to get back out there.

Yesterday was International Cube Day organised by Anonymous For The Voiceless. Last year 190 events took place on Cube Day and this year it was up to a massive 500 including the first event in the Middle East. We managed to get 22 people to take veganism seriously in Romford and there were also other local events going on in Southend and Chelmsford. I’ll update this when I find out the global tally.

Update – 491 cubes actually happened on International Cube Day with 22,188 people going away taking veganism seriously.

Have you been doing any activism this week? Let me know in the comments below.

Plumes x

A week of animal activism

Essex Pig Save October 2018

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As I happened to be off work I joined Essex Pig Save for their October vigil this week. I luckily grabbed a lift from my friend Simona but if you are travelling by public transport people will give lifts from the nearby West Hordon train station.

The Save Movement was started in Toronto, Canada a few years ago. The aim is to offer comfort to the animals in the last moments of their lives, repent for the animals we have paid to be killed prior to us going vegan and share footage of these animals to help to persuade others to change their habits and stop eating and using animals.

There is a police presence and we have an agreement with the slaughterhouse that the trucks carrying the pigs will stop for two minutes so we can see them. Often the slates on the lower levels are shut but many have selfie sticks so we can see into the higher levels. After each truck goes in we hold a two minutes silence along the boundary of the property.

This can be upsetting for the activists so we comfort eachother.

In-between the trucks arriving we have placards to show to drivers who drive past and we do receive positive reception from many.

There are animal saves all over the world now so if you are interested I would recommend you go to The Save Movement’s website to find your local group. If there isn’t one you can ask for advise to how to set up your own.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

Plumes x

Essex Pig Save October 2018

The Retreat Animal Sanctuary

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Yesterday I visited The Retreat Animal Rescue in Ashford, Kent for their open day with my Mum and friend LJ (Literary Vegan on Instagram).

The Retreat looks after many farm animals to live out their days in freedom and safety. There were some animals who were very new to the sanctuary, some turkeys that had arrived just the previous day and a calf who was saved from the veal trade due to an eye infection while the rest of his brothers in truck are now being fattened in Europe soon bound for somebody’s plate.

The Retreat has a cafe which is exclusively vegan. They explain that it would be hypocritical for them to save certain animals while others end up being eaten.

On the open day they had a range of events including raffles, sales of clothes, second items and cakes as well as lots of activities for the little ones and even some live music.

It costs £500 a day to run the sanctuary and you can support them by heading to their website to make a donation or to sponsor one of their animals.

It helps as an activist to see animals who have been saved from the terrible lives their brothers and sisters have to go through, and give us a reason to continue our fight for there rest of them.

LJ is a poet and she very nicely gifted us a copy of the latest collection to say thank you for giving her a lift to the sanctuary. You can find this and her other work here.

The Retreat is open for one more weekend before it shuts for the winter so you can get there if you get your skates on. Otherwise you’ll have to wait until they reopen in March.

Plumes x

The Retreat Animal Sanctuary

Animal Rights March 2018

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Yesterday saw 10,000 vegans come together in London to stand up for animals. There were marches taking place in 23 cities across 14 countries.

We marched from Westminster to Hyde Park and then heard speeches from a variety of speakers. It was so good to walk alongside like-minded people united in the cause. We even made the news!

Here is a variety of photos from the Facebook event page, I didn’t take any myself as I needed both hands to hold my placard!

This is the third annual animal rights march in London organised by Surge and it is great to see the numbers doubling each year.

Did you take part in any of the marches? Let me know about your experiences in the comments below.

Plumes x

Animal Rights March 2018

THL McDonalds Campaign

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The Humane League is a vegan animal rights charity that originated in the US in 2005 and expanded into the UK in 2016. Their aim is to reduce the most amount of suffering for the largest number of animals.

Their last campaign in the UK was to eliminate cages from the supply chains of companies using eggs. 80 companies committed to phasing out cages including Noble Foods who have 4.3 million chickens in the UK.

Their focus has now come to broiler chickens (those raised for meat). Along with a coalition of other animal groups The Humane League is asking companies using chickens in their supply chains to sign up to the Better Chicken Commitment. This outlines a number of requirements to improve chicken welfare.

The most important factor relates to the breed. The breeds permitted under the Better Chicken Commitment grow slower so the birds are able to support their own weight and are less likely to have physical issues that a lot of the chickens raised for meat suffer from today.

The following companies have signed up to the Better Chicken Commitment

Marks and Spencer

Unilever

Danone

Nestlé

Zizzi

Ask Italian

Coco Di Mama

Pret a Manger

Prezzo

There is a notable market leading company missing from this list… McDonalds.

McDonalds uses millions of chickens in their supply chains globally and if they agreed to the commitment it would improve the lives of so many chickens and also encourage other companies to follow suit.

McDonalds only use free-range eggs and organic milk so it is hypocritical that they are not committed to improving the welfare of the chickens in their supply chains.

The Humane League has carried out a week of action this week encouraging McDonalds to make the change and do the right thing.

You can find everything about the campaign at https://www.ImNotLovinIt.co.uk.

The events started off on Saturday where a group of protesters toured 14 McDonalds locations in London, educating the public and speaking to individual store managers.

On Tuesday we took our own Ronald to McDonalds HQ in East Finchley where we encouraged employees to throw wet sponges at him. Unfortunately none of them took us up on the offer!

The public were more than happy to have a go when we took the stocks to Kings Cross and which was reported on in The London Economic.

On Wednesday a flash mob danced their way from HQ to Leicester Square.

On Thursday we delivered our petition with over 236,000 signatures to HQ along with a large “unhappy” meal.

You can see the videos of the week’s events on The Humane League UK Facebook page.

We need to keep the pressure on McDonalds, you can help by contacting them on social media, emailing, phoning and speaking to your local store manager. Go to https://www.ImNotLovinIt.co.uk/ to add your voice to the cause.

Plumes x

THL McDonalds Campaign