Animal Products in Electronics

wolfynerd0000

wolfynerd0000

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i have compiled a database of links on the topic of animal products in electronics and i want to know other vegans opinions on this and the ethics behind it because i think this topic is not discussed enough and i need to form an educated option on this as a person to help the greater good one of the way i want to help is by asking you all for you options well educating people about the stuff that i "found"

Are most electronics vegan/vegetarian?
Are Electronics Vegan? (Short Summary)
Vegans Use Computers – Who Is The True Hypocrite? – The Vegan Argument
Vegan laptops?
Are Smartphones Vegan? You’ll Want To See This
Computers and animal products
If You Can Never Be 100% Vegan, Why Even Bother?
A Different Response To The Vegan iPhone Argument
Serious question about vegans and electronics

please share you thoughts
 
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wolfynerd0000 said:
i have compiled a database of links on the topic of animal products in electronics and i want to know other vegans opinions on this and the ethics behind it because i think this topic is not discussed enough and i need to form an educated option on this as a person to help the greater good one of the way i want to help is by asking you all for you options well educating people about the stuff that i "found"

Are most electronics vegan/vegetarian?
Are Electronics Vegan? (Short Summary)
Vegans Use Computers – Who Is The True Hypocrite? – The Vegan Argument
Vegan laptops?
Are Smartphones Vegan? You’ll Want To See This
Computers and animal products
If You Can Never Be 100% Vegan, Why Even Bother?
A Different Response To The Vegan iPhone Argument
Serious question about vegans and electronics

please share you thoughts
Click to expand...
.
I don't have any opinions, but I would like to offer some fact-checking.

Below, I've addressed the articles' claims individually, with links to my cited sources.

Note: To all you kids who are using forums for your school research, instead of doing your own research, (1) you're welcome, and (2) your laziness and lack of research skills will eventually hurt you during your career.
 
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  • Informative
Reactions: Tom L. and Second Summer
Note: To all you kids who are using forums for your school research, instead of doing your own research, (1) you're welcome, and (2) your laziness and lack of research skills will eventually hurt you during your career.
Click to expand...
1. thank you
2. i tried to look this up and did not know ware to start but you are right i should have look more into it
3. my research skills are at a fine level
4. this is not for a school project this is a genuine ethical concern
well in this endeavor iam i more so focusing on the use of animal-derived stearic acid and other tallow based manufacturing aid products in the making of plastics then the concerns of rare earth medal mining my problems lie in the fact the animal products are in plastics or should i say the making of plastics
manufacturers use animal-derived ingredients "to improve material properties and/or to aid in processing of raw polymers"
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Metal Soaps (Calcium and Zinc Stearate)
Metal Soaps
PMC Metallic Stearates for Plastics
we should complain to these companies and any other that produces such products from animal sources about the ethical concerns of making non-vegan plastics with out telling the consumer and if so involve larger news and government bodies in to the picture to get this going more public there is one article that mentions a ERC logo be i could not find any info on it "Mercifully, vegans, and other hippy-do-gooders like me, will have the option of opting out of plastic made with animal by-products — a logo. That’s right, another eco-label to look out for. This one will be a new symbol, ERC®, that has been officially registered and will identify animal-free plastic."
Animal-derived stearates are being phased-out of certain medical device plastics, due to concerns over prion disease (BSE, "mad cow disease")
Click to expand...
it is no longer just being fazed out of medical devices
A Risk-Based Aproach to Establishing Animal-Component–Free Facilities
Animal-free (AOF / ADCF) Manufacture Statement
TPE – New Plastic Product is Free from Ingredients of Animal Origin
animal-component-free-policy-for-facilities-and-raw-materials
after all of this what can i besides buy less because there is now way for avoid animal products in plastics iam i being complacent by using there products and what can be done about this is this going to create a tie between veganism and minimalism just to reduce the chance of derived stearates being in these products i dont want to support this but i want to use plastic

PS here is a similar discussion (Tissues of Animal Origins)

lastly thank you again
 
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wolfynerd0000 said:
i have compiled a database of links on the topic of animal products in electronics and i want to know other vegans opinions on this and the ethics behind it because i think this topic is not discussed enough and i need to form an educated option on this as a person to help the greater good one of the way i want to help is by asking you all for you options well educating people about the stuff that i "found"

Are most electronics vegan/vegetarian?
Are Electronics Vegan? (Short Summary)
Vegans Use Computers – Who Is The True Hypocrite? – The Vegan Argument
Vegan laptops?
Are Smartphones Vegan? You’ll Want To See This
Computers and animal products
If You Can Never Be 100% Vegan, Why Even Bother?
A Different Response To The Vegan iPhone Argument
Serious question about vegans and electronics

please share you thoughts
Click to expand...
I haven't gone through your list but I do already have some developed thoughts on this... From an epistemological perspective, it would always be this appeal to authority thing to expect me to believe the computers have animal products in them, same sort of thing with the animal bones in the sidewalk thing, sure I can imagine it but thats totally non intuitive and I would never have any idea unless someone told me whereas milk and chicken legs and whatever else is this straightforward thing that you can know and reason through independent of authority (even if the ideas were first shared via a professor or something). I do care if there are animals products in the computers of course but in terms of the effort to verify... it seems like our time is required on other things... it does have a great tangent opportunity for talking about vegan economics... if you care about being pure with your electronics you should also care about shopping at 100% vegan businesses (and those do exist) instead of omnivore businesses that happen to have vegan options... when you choose the non vegan business you are giving omnivores money for buying steaks and cheeses and whatever else... I currently have no money so lol, I don't have much experience but there's online retailers and vegan haven in seattle and a few others all over the place... of course their suppliers are not always 100% vegan so there's this argument that if we wanted to build the vegan world we should be trying to create a 100% vegan supply chain, vegan farmers, vegan truck drivers, vegan manufacturers, etc.
 
JacobEdward said:
I haven't gone through your list but I do already have some developed thoughts on this... From an epistemological perspective, it would always be this appeal to authority thing to expect me to believe the computers have animal products in them, same sort of thing with the animal bones in the sidewalk thing, sure I can imagine it but thats totally non intuitive and I would never have any idea unless someone told me whereas milk and chicken legs and whatever else is this straightforward thing that you can know and reason through independent of authority (even if the ideas were first shared via a professor or something). I do care if there are animals products in the computers of course but in terms of the effort to verify... it seems like our time is required on other things... it does have a great tangent opportunity for talking about vegan economics... if you care about being pure with your electronics you should also care about shopping at 100% vegan businesses (and those do exist) instead of omnivore businesses that happen to have vegan options... when you choose the non vegan business you are giving omnivores money for buying steaks and cheeses and whatever else... I currently have no money so lol, I don't have much experience but there's online retailers and vegan haven in seattle and a few others all over the place... of course their suppliers are not always 100% vegan so there's this argument that if we wanted to build the vegan world we should be trying to create a 100% vegan supply chain, vegan farmers, vegan truck drivers, vegan manufacturers, etc.
Click to expand...
In certain parts of the world it is just not possible to only shop at Vegan shops. If I'd want to do that I'd always have to travel to the capital, which is at least 2 hours away from where I live. This, also, is not an ecological option.

About the computer-thing, we are living in a society where there's regretfully a lot of animal waste and it gets used basically everywhere.
Veganism according to the vegan society is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."
In this definition the "as far as possible and practicable" is important. For me for instance, I work in IT and get a computer from work. Which computer this is I don't have any input in and any activety in daily life is basically arranged by computers. Trains, fridges, televisions, routers, phones, ... they all contain computers so it is impossble to live a life without them except of you go live in Alaska and live of the land.
 
Tomas said:
In certain parts of the world it is just not possible to only shop at Vegan shops. If I'd want to do that I'd always have to travel to the capital, which is at least 2 hours away from where I live. This, also, is not an ecological option.
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If I had the money and a car, I would definitely make the 2 hour drive to Seattle once a month for groceries at Vegan Haven... I feel like burning a calorie to figure out a monthly food plan isnt too much to ask
 
I would too if i had a giant freezer seeing I only try to buy fresh produce but seeing my freezer has only 3 small drawers and I haven't the room for another, I visit the local vegetable shop for fresh foods several times per week by bike and the supermarket for all the rest.
 
Tomas said:
I would too if i had a giant freezer seeing I only try to buy fresh produce but seeing my freezer has only 3 small drawers and I haven't the room for another, I visit the local vegetable shop for fresh foods several times per week by bike and the supermarket for all the rest.
Click to expand...
It doesn't bother you that they will use your money to buy dead body parts? Fresh produce is only possible with the larger chains that have the volume to support that type of thing... idk, it seems like a bit of a double standard, imagine it was between human slavery products and abolitionist products but they didn't have the type you liked... I get that if you are extremely poor like me but once I do have the cash I absolutely want to try being exclusive as much as possible... might have to burn a calorie or two to figure it out but its like nobody is trying
 
I am going to post the definition of veganism I live by once again so that you might understand where I'm coming from: Veganism according to the vegan society is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

This means that I limit the use of animal products in my life as much as I can in a way that is possible and practicable to me. I don't eat or use ANY animal products but I don't have the room or the time to buy all my products in a vegan store. Therefor I buy my fruit and veggies in a store that only sells fruits en veggies and I buy the stuff I clean with in a store that only sels that stuff but that still leaves me some stuff I need to buy in the supermarket.

Does it bother me that the supermarket buys meat with the mobey I leave there? No, because I don't buy meat there, EVER, so the meat they have there is not there because of me or for me. The meat is there because if the people that actually buy meat there. Supply and demand. Economics 101.
 
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Tomas said:
I am going to post the definition of veganism I live by once again so that you might understand where I'm coming from
Click to expand...
I hope I'm not upsetting you, I just want to have an honest conversation about what is possible and practical... a lot of people are not honest about that...
Tomas said:
This means that I limit the use of animal products in my life as much as I can in a way that is possible and practicable to me. I don't eat or use ANY animal products but I don't have the room or the time to buy all my products in a vegan store.
Click to expand...
Have you considered coordinating with a local vegan who could do both of your shopping?
Tomas said:
Does it bother me that the supermarket buys meat with the mobey I leave there? No, because I don't buy meat there, EVER, so the meat they have there is not there because of me or for me. The meat is there because if the people that actually buy meat there. Supply and demand. Economics 101.
Click to expand...
They pay their employees wages with the profit from your money and the assumption that any of the initial principle spent on the vegan products will always ever go to restocking those same vegan products isn't always true and probably isn't true as long as the majority of the demand is for animal products (faster turn over rate, more profit)... as long as the more profitable option is the animal products they will be resupplying those first...

Btw, the economy is fake, 101 laws of supply and demand have been completely broken for at least decades, very easy to see if you look at supply and demand for labor... I wrote a post a while back, you should comment
https://www.veganforum.org/threads/socialism-vs-capitalism-in-terms-of-vegan-activism.16305/
 
I skim read some of the articles and comments but I want to respond to the general thread.

I personally have purchased electronics once in the last 5-10 years or so. It was last year, and I got a new job, and they were expecting me to buy a new laptop rather than use an old one, so I did. I don't think I checked anything about veganism when I bought it. As far as I know all laptops probably have small amounts of animal products in them but very little.

I don't think I have ever bought a smart phone in my life, but someone usually takes pity on me after seeing me use an old one and gets me one as a present.

I have several times extended the lifetime of products by purchasing a replacement battery or display. Do that, or buy second hand, or even just don't worry about it. The use of animal products in electronics doesn't make my list of the top 100 things that bother me, and I don't have energy/time in my life for letting more than 100 things bother me. Prioritize.

There is an electronics recycling centre a 40-minute drive from my house, and I keep all the recycling and go there once a year.
 
There is arguably a slight inconsistency in vegan ethics.

In that for food items (and perhaps toiletries) you are required to avoid anything that has animal products in, even if the amount of the animal product is very small.

But for non-food items like electronics or vehicles, you are only required to perhaps avoid something like leather seats or cases, but not very small quantities of animal products.

To summarize the implicit vegan rule is effectively that if something contains 0.1% animal product that is not allowed for food but for a car or electronics it is allowed.

Some will say the "possible and practical" explains this. I am not sure that's fully true though. It is surely more practical to buy second-hand electronics only than it is to read and study the ingredients of every processed food product in the supermarket.

But perhaps you could still argue that the vegan alternatives are available for food but not for electronics where there is no alternative. Perhaps if fully vegan laptops were made, and accounted for say half of the available products at normal cost, things might shift a bit and people might start saying "you can't call yourself vegan if you buy such and such brand laptop".

Another explanation for this discrepancy might be that veganism was founded initially thinking mainly or only of food and other things were added later, which might in practice explain why things turned out this way. The legacy of that initial focus.

It could make sense in that food is something you consume 3 times a day, so small amount of animal products add up. Whereas a laptop is perhaps once every so many years so the amounts are just small full stop. I don't think this is in practice why it turned out this way though, but could be a justification in retrospect.

Another reason is that most foods do have a list of ingredients which you can read whereas a laptop and a car do not. Perhaps if processed foods didn't have lists of ingredients things might have turned out differently and we might have a common sense approach like we do for laptops.
 
So you'll be the one to assess what, in my life, is feasable for me? I think I am a far better judge at that. I am saying that I do everything in my live that is possible to ban all animal products. Not only not eating anything that is derived from animals but in all other things as well but I can't go to a vegan shop regularly because it is not practically doable. I'd rather fund them of course then a store that also sells animal products but there's the matter of it just not being a possibility in my life. There is also not a "local vegan" that I know in the erea where I live. There isn't a door with a plaque saying "here lives your friendly neighbourhood vegan". I can however say that the amount of stuff I buy from a supermarket is very limited and EVERYTHING I can get somewhere else I buy somewhere else. You say "If I had money and a car I would...", isn't that also an excuse to not do it? who says I do have these possibilities you talk about? I know I never did...

Regarding the supermarkets and their "supply and demand-economics" I can tell you that my sister is actually a team manager at one of the supermarkets here and they very much abide by that rule. They make weekly graphs per product and per product category (and per season and per yaer). If a product rises in sales, they buy more of it, if a product decreases in sales they buy less. The amount of meat in the rack has greatly decreased the last years while the sale of veggie and vegan alternatives and products has beengradually going up. Isn't it a good idea to get local supermarkets, that are less specific then a vegan shop, to have more vegan stuff on the racks? Won't that make non-vegans consider the vegan option as well? Would supermarkets even have these products on the rack if we as vegan would never buy them? A non-vegan will not go to a vegan shop 2 hours away but he/she WILL go to a local supermarket. That way, the supermarket places vegan options within reach of the masses. I know that in my family, where I am the only vegan, all of them regularly eat vegan and vegetarian several times per week because they have the option to do so.

Seeing I NEVER buy any products with animal parts in it or for which animal parts have been used to produce it, I am not the one responsible for any increase of meat products in a supermarkets. I AM however possibly partly responsible for the increase in vegan products they are now stocking up on more and more.

By your logic I wouldn't be able to buy a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop because the owner of the shop might go to the butcher later and buy meat with the money I gave her.
 
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Jamie in Chile said:
Some will say the "possible and practical" explains this. I am not sure that's fully true though. It is surely more practical to buy second-hand electronics only than it is to read and study the ingredients of every processed food product in the supermarket.
Click to expand...
Imagine there was something like the wikimedia foundation for the vegan activist movement where we shared industry knowledge with each other so we could literally produce all the stuff we would need including things like vegan toilet paper for vegan consumers by vegan producers... Its possible for those people... whats the problem? PETA has money coming in every year

Teams of dedicated software developers wouldn't cost that much to support in the literal cost of materials if you had teams to build as many as possible, aka you would always run out of money before running out of volunteers...

Evil omnivore monsters are stalking me at starbucks while I type this, I've notified the cops, I simply do not know what to do, it is a human rights violation		Screenshot 2021-06-17 100001.png
Screenshot 2021-03-14 120058.png
 
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Tomas said:
So you'll be the one to assess what, in my life, is feasable for me?
Click to expand...

I haven't read it all, I was just going to go off of what would be physically possible, aren't you curious what the real limit would be?killCounter.gif
copy and paste the image about blaming PETA and HSUS here
 
Jamie in Chile said:
But perhaps you could still argue that the vegan alternatives are available for food but not for electronics where there is no alternative. Perhaps if fully vegan laptops were made, and accounted for say half of the available products at normal cost, things might shift a bit and people might start saying "you can't call yourself vegan if you buy such and such brand laptop".
Click to expand...
Its the same thing with vegan banking... right now where most people literally dont have that as an option, it makes it a non starter, but imagine you had the vegan bank right next to the non vegan bank... are you suggesting the decision of what bank to go to is morally irrelevant? Imagine there was a laptop that claimed to be vegan... that would make it different right?

There are grocery stores that claim to be 100% vegan... that should make it different
 
Jamie in Chile said:
Another explanation for this discrepancy might be that veganism was founded initially thinking mainly or only of food and other things were added later, which might in practice explain why things turned out this way. The legacy of that initial focus.
Click to expand...
Its usually a personal moral discussion, this is like NWO totality of everything vegan discussion
 
Jamie in Chile said:
It could make sense in that food is something you consume 3 times a day, so small amount of animal products add up. Whereas a laptop is perhaps once every so many years so the amounts are just small full stop. I don't think this is in practice why it turned out this way though, but could be a justification in retrospect.
Click to expand...
Thats not it... its like the bone char they use in sugar, its only there because of everything else in animal agriculture that makes it cheap... vegan world would still have sugar, vegan world would still have laptops... or thats how the appeal to authority narrative describes it
 
Tomas said:
I think I am a far better judge at that.
Click to expand...
Clearly there are some situations where some individuals would not be the better judge of their own activism strategy, right? Is it not possible to get that question wrong?
 

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