'Ethical' in this question refers to 'abiding to the general ethics of a vegan lifestyle'. If you are unsure what that means then you can look it up online and make your best guess.
Here is the scenario:
You work part-time for a wedding company/reception hall on the weekends. You generally clean venues, serve drinks, carry plates, and assist with setup and breakdown of venues.
At wedding receptions and work events, people order food from the company you work for. The company provides various dishes, the vast majority of which contain animal products.
In nearly all cases, these events end with copious excess food. When food service is concluded at the event, all employees of the company are offered the chance to take any leftovers which would otherwise, and those which remain will, be thrown away in the trash.
In this scenario, you are vegan. Is it acceptable to you morally to take some of the leftovers, many of them containing meat or other animal products? Or is it a general violation of your ethics as they align with veganism to do so?
1,000People are also trading
See this Reddit thread.. https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/1bea05g/eating_meat_that_would_otherwise_be_thrown_away/
Per https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism
The diet predates the definition by five years but the modern term vegan comes with the baggage/philosophy of the founders so by eating meat I think in a literal sense you are literally exploiting animals
The Reddit thread comes with a variety of posts on alternative terms /practices that might better suit some case by case stances (freeganism / flexitarian etc)…
@parhizj the Reddit thread has a number of people who immediately leap from the idea of eating meat to eating human corpses, etc. But the Vegas Society page focuses on exploiting animals. Since the animals in this case have already been fully exploited, it should be ethical to eat them as a vegan. That said, it's best to consume it paired with a nice bottle of wine, and some dinner rolls to sop up the drippings.
@CraigDemel rather than just saying whether the scenario fits veganism I think the creator would be better served by finding a philosophy compatible with or adjacent to their intuitions .. that’s why I posted both links
@parhizj well it's helpful to know, either way. It's helpful to find descriptors for one's own beliefs, but it's also good and fun to know the bounds of systems you're not necessarily a part of (like I may be Catholic for example, but still take interest in the tenants of Lutheran vs Baptist approaches of christianity).
In which I fight the hypothetical: Did you at least try to tell your coworkers that you're vegan, and would appreciate dibs on any vegan leftovers?
An alternate view on the original problem: does whatever concern implied your veganism in the first place, also imply it's ethical to commit to being vegan even when you can't see the direct consequentialist impact of breaking your veganism?
@EvanDaniel regarding the first part: assume that some coworkers know through other conversation, but not all. But whether they consider this when choosing their own leftovers is unknown to you.
(also, what might be the relevance of such a factor when it comes to the ethics of it?)
Also, consider that in some instances there may not be any leftovers which are vegan (for example, the party had just an assortment of cubed cheeses leftover), and other instances where all leftovers are vegan (the only remains were cut fruit and raw veg)
to the second part: I think your question is basically the same as my question, inverted. If the answer is yes to you, then the answer is NO to my poll, is the answer is NO to you, then it's YES to me. Or am I misunderstanding?
@realDonaldTrump also it depends on the reason that the person is a vegan and what their philosophical views on consuming animals are
@realDonaldTrump (to your first comment) which are?
(to the second comment) you should make a judgement based on what you know about veganism or look it up on the internet and go from there