Shopping in shades of green
As an author crowned the high priestess of green, I’m often taken aside by friends and colleagues at cocktail parties. In hushed voices, they reveal to me their dilemmas, those questions nagging at their environmental and social consciences. Unfortunately, I don’t always have the answers — in part because sometimes the questions are just so bizarre (I actually don’t know if canned lychees are sustainably harvested) or because I have the memory of, well, a busy mother of three. Another reason is that answers to eco and ethical quandaries aren’t always black and white, but instead shades of green.
That said, there are some questions that seem to weigh heavily on women’s minds. Herewith, my no-nonsense nine for a clean conscience.
Is it okay to wear the mink coat I inherited from my mother?
In one corner, we have — side by side in matching minks — practicality and sentimentality, both strong contenders. In the other, we have animal ethics, and a decidedly subjective arena.
While, in the past, I’ve excused my own faux (-fur) pas based on my conviction that no blood was spilled (although, admittedly, petroleum was), I eventually conceded that, as someone who believes vehemently that animals deserve respect, I was nonetheless participating in the glamorizing of fur.
Most animals farmed for their furs live in incredibly stressful and agonizing conditions. Perhaps the only good thing we can say is that their lives are blessedly short. Most are confined in cages and contribute to the same host of eco problems as those found in other animal confinement operations, such as disease and water pollution from runoff.
However, I understand the attachment to a much-loved item from a much-loved mom. So what can you do? One option is to send Mom’s fur out into the world to do some good. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals accepts fur coats and donates them to homeless shelters. The Humane Society of Canada also accept fur coats, which it forwards to centres where they’re used as bedding to help rehabilitate wild animals.
Check with your local shelter or wildlife rehabilitation centre too. Goodwill Industries accepts furs and, of course, sells them at prices low-income Canadians can afford. Consider it: You’ll get a warm feeling that no fur can match.
