I didn’t even consider that soap could be made out of bacon grease, like when I heard “animal fat” that just never came to mind
I am once again thinking about neighborhood-scale networks of DIY and mutual aid where community wealth could be created literally for free by collecting things that people would otherwise throw away
Expecting every single person to make soap and broth and compost and mend all their clothes and repair all their electronics and upcycle all of their trash in useful ways is just never gonna work. No one has time to do everything, especially if they’re forced to have a job too
But if one person learns how to make soap, and everyone in the neighborhood brings them leftover animal fat and gets soap in return, it becomes a lot more manageable. Someone else learns how to spin dryer lint, someone else pulps and recycles paper, someone else grows food, someone else raises chickens, etc, etc, and suddenly you’ve got a whole moneyless circular economy going. Less stuff going to landfills, less money going to corporations, more prosperity for everyone
If the concept of getting free things in exchange for trash interests you, find a Buy Nothing Project or a mutual aid organization in your area and get involved!
Also check out trash nothing, what free cycle became! https://trashnothing.com/beta/
My greatnana used to make soap this way for the whole neighborhood. They’d all bring her the grease they’d collected, and she’d go out to the back forty (rendering fat STINKS my friends) and boil and skim off all the tallow in a cauldron over a banked firepit - it was technically a tamale pot, but it could hold you and me and the mailman makes three - and add the lye and herbs and when it was done she’d slice it up and people would come collect their portion. Her only expense was the lye, which is cheap in bulk for starters, and it’s miles cheaper than store bought soap, so her labor yielded real, tangible benefits. This is how people throughout history have gotten the work done. Don’t feel overwhelmed because you can’t do it all yourself. You were never meant to.