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presents
Green Consuming in Perspective
by Gross Genitalia
Toxic File #70
Centre of Eternity 615.552.5747 40 Megs Lots of Files HQ of Toxic Shock
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The only recent environmental awareness has brought into realization the dire
need to clean this toxic waste dump of a planet up. Only recently are we doing
the things that each and every family and human being SHOULD have been doing
from birth. We should have all been recycling. In the early 80's, some people
considered people that recycled and were otherwise concerned with their planet
were considered "hippies" and were thought to sit around, try to live in peace,
and smoke mary jane incessantly. Only recently have the bullshit myths been
broken and the environment made a BIG concern.
The following article is from a recent issue of "Greenpeace", the bimonthly
magazine from the environmental organization of the same name. The article is
described in the table of contents:
"Now that being ecologically correct is the rage, corporations have discovered
that money does grow on trees. But doing the right thing is more complicated
than the advertisements suggest. A guide for the perplexed."
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A BILL OF GOODS?
GREEN CONSUMING IN PERSPECTIVE
by Debra Lynn Dadd and Andre Carothers
"Greenpeace" Vol. 15 Number 3 May/June 1990
The ad opens with a tableau of children laughing and skipping as they carry
green garbage bags across a verdant meadow strewn with litter. As they stuff
the trash in bags, a voice-over speaks of the virtues of a clean environment
and biodegradable garbage bags. With the field nearly cleaned, a spectral
Native American in ceremonial regalia appears, intoning to one awed youngster,
"Take what you need, but always leave the land as you found it."
In another commercial, a butterfly flits across the screen, and a pleasant
voice patiently details the magnanimity of Chevron, the multinational oil
giant, which has set aside land near one of its refineries to ensure that the
rapidly dwindling El Segundo Blue butterfly does not fade into extinction. Who
performs such acts of selfless altruism, the viewer is asked? "People Do,"
responds the oil company.
This is the new environmental advertising, the big-business response to the
ecological mood of the public. We'll be seeing a lot more of it in the '90s.
The environment, for better or worse (mostly better), is now an "issue". The
Michael Peters Group, a design and new products consulting firm, found in a
1989 market research poll that 89 percent of Americans and concerned about the
impact in the environment of the products they purchase, more than half say
they decline to buy certain products out of concern for the environment, and
78 percent would pay more for a product packaged with recyclable or biodegrad-
able materials.
Environmental concern "is a bigger market than some of the hottest markets
of the '80s," says the journal AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHICS. "This is not a small
market niche of people who believe in 'the Greening of America'," says Ray
Goldberg of the Harvard Business School. "It is becoming a major segment of the
consuming public." Little wonder, then, that Madison Avenue has turned caring
for the environment into a marketing strategy. "The selling of the environ-
ment," says Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III, "may make the
cholesterol craze look like a Sunday school picnic."
In the case of these two TV ads, the sell is all hype. The first, for Glad
"biodegradable" garbage bags, fails to mention that truly biodegradable plastic
is as rare as the El Segundo Blue. Even if it were available, the pollution
released in plastic production puts the Glad Bag's ecological balance sheet
squarely in the red. And Chevron is first and foremost an oil company, an
industry that is directly and indirectly responsible for much of the pollution
on earth. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that Chevron has probably
spent five times as much to boast in magazines and on television of its skimpy
list of environmental initiatives than the actions actually cost. (And many of
them were required under the provisions of their permits anyway.)
Navigating the misleading claims of opportunistic advertisers is just one of
the difficulties facing the sonsumer intent on "ecologically correct" shopping.
So complicated is the terrain, in fact, that what is becoming known as "green
consuming" may prove to be nothing more than a costly diversion from the
campaign to save the earth.
The rush to fill the stores of Europe and North America with consumer goods
is just one of several leading causes of environmental destruction. The
influence of big business has foiled the effort to rein in the consumer
culture's worst side effects. One method is to inform consumers of the
implications of their purchases, a tradition that inspires consumer rights
groups all over the world. Informative labeling is now the method of choice for
environmentalists and manufacturers.
The first labeling scheme keyed for ecological concerns was West Germany's
Blue Angel program, begun in 1978. The Blue Angel symbol graces over 2,000
products, calling consumer's attention to benefits such as recycled paper and
the absence of toxic solvents. Similar schemes are being proposed in nearly
every country in Western Europe and now in the United States. They come in
three versions: independent, non-governmental efforts, like the United States'
new Green Seal program (managed by the Alliance for Social Responsibility in
New York); quasi-governmental schemes like those being developed in the United
Kingdom and Canada; and identification programs from the manufacturers them-
selves, like Wal-Mart's new line of "green" products.
Industry's fear of the consumer has produced some notable successes. Before
Friends of the Earth in the United Kingdom had launched a planned boycott of
CFC-containing aerosols, the industry pledged to phase them out. The Blue Angel
program can lay claim to preventing 40,000 tons of solvents from entering the
waste stream through glossy paints. The concern over agrochemicals in food has
given a much-needed boost to the organic food industry, and the boycott of
tuna, in conjunction with a federal labeling requirement that may pass the
U.S. Congress this year, will play a large role in saving dolphins from the
fishing fleet's nets.
But green consuming has its limits. First, seals of approval may be awarded
indiscriminately and for the wrong reasons. The Blue Angel, for example, is
bestowed on one brand of gasoline-powered lawnmower because it is quieter than
a rival. The push variety, soundless and emission-free, gets no reward.
Loblaw's, a Canadian chain of grocery stores, has among its self-proclaimed
"green" products a brand of acid-free coffee, so labeled because it does not
cause stomach upsets. "Green" batteries are being marketed in the United
Kingdom and Canada that contain mercury - considerably less than other brands,
but enough to put the lie to claims of environmental friendliness.
Some claims are absurd. "Biodegradable" diapers are filling the developed
world's landfills, with no sign that they will ever disappear. West German
manufacturer AEG launched a $2 million ad campaign in England claiming that
their dishwashers saved newts. The logic runs like this: since the AEG
appliances are slightly more energy efficient, they use less electricity and
are therefore responsible for less acid-rain-causing power plant emissions
(which, we assume, kill newts). Arco has launched a "clean" gasoline in
California with the slogan "Let's drive away smog." Both Volkswagen and Audi
have touted their cars' low emissions, including "harmless carbon dioxide." If
they had done a little homework they would have discovered that carbon dioxide
is a leading greenhouse gas.
The environmental advertising bandwagon offers companies an opportunity to
spruce up their images at relatively low cost. Many of the recycled paper
products now flooding the market are made by companies with otherwise repre-
hensible environmental records. In the United Kingdom, according to the
company's slogan, "Green means Heinz," but in the Pacific, thanks to tuna
fishing, it means dead dolphins. And the term "biodegradable" has been attached
to so many different brands of polluting petroleum-based plastics that it has
become virtually meaningless, as well as highly misleading. [See sidebars
elsewhere in the file.]
These companies rely on government regulations for some of their claims,
leading to situations like McDonald's declaration that their styrofoam burger
trays are CFC-free, when in fact they contain CFC-22, a less potent member of
the same chemical family. The lie is based on a glaring example of regulatory
sleight of hand: according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, CFC-22
is "technically not a CFC," although for the ozone layer the distinction is far
less clear. Under federal law, paper manufacturers can call paper "recycled"
when it includes 40 precent recycled content, and that portion consists mostly
of paper left over from production processes, not paper that has already been
through a consumer's hands and recycled. In Canada, where the Canadian
Standards Association creates guidelines for green products, business does its
best to ensure that standards are not too stringent. "We make the draft of a
guideline," says one insider, "and the industry fights to lower the standard."
All this should raise doubts about industry's claims that they have seen the
light, and that hiding behind the advertising pitch is a real concern for the
environment that transcends the bottom line. In fact, the record shows that big
business is not inclined toward public service. According to a study by Amitai
Etzioni of the Harvard Business School, two-thirds of the Fortune 500 companies
have been charged with serious crimes, from price-fixing to illegal dumping of
hazardous wastes. And these are only the ones that have been caught.
But even if we could count on the good faith of all concerned, the role of
green consuming in the fight to save the planet is destined to remain small and
marginal. Consumption's role in destroying the environment is a complex and
poorly understood phenomenon. A truly green economy, for example, would require
that all products be audited for their effects. Such an audit would analyze the
product from "cradle to grave," and include the amount of energy used to
produce and transport the item, the pollution generated in its manufacture, the
role of the commodity in the economic and social health of the country of
origin, the investment plans of the company in question and all its sub-
sidiaries, and the final disposal of the product.
The questions raised by this approach are endless. Does the use of
rainforest nuts justify the energy expended transporting them here? Are the
labor practices in processing these nuts fair? We all thought the right thing
to do was to use paper bags, but if energy use is factored in, some studies
show that plastic grocery bags are more environmentally benign (bringing a
bag from home doesn't make money for anyone, so you won't see that solution
advertised). Should we buy recycled paper from a company known to pollute
rivers with pulp mill effluent? Should magazines be printed on chlorine-
bleached paper contaminated with dioxin, even if it is recycled and recyclable?
Or should they use dioxin-free paper from Europe, even though it is at the
moment rarely recycled, and fossil fuels are used to transport it?
Moreover, much of the pollution generated by business is out of reach of the
average consumer. For example, as Barry Commoner points out, one of the reasons
we have air pollution is that much of the work done by railways has been taken
over by trucks, which generate four times as much pollution for each ton
hauled. How would the average store owner respond if we demanded only goods
that had been delivered by train? And when the beer industry consolidated and
discovered that it was cheaper to sell beer in throwaway bottles than in
returnables, what possible role could the consumer have played? Between 1959
and 1970, the number of beer bottles produced increased five-fold, while
consumption only went up by one-third. Detroit pushes big cars with high-
compression, high-pollution engines on the American public not because "that's
what we demand," but because that's where the biggest profits are. These
decisions aren't illegal, they are simply part of "doing business" in the usual
way - a way that puts environmental considerations last.
Finally, individual action, when limited to the supermarket aisles, does
little to forward the fundamental changes required to save the earth. Not only
is this collection of individual actions completely outdistanced by the pace of
destruction thoughout the world, but as Friends of the Earth in in the United
Kingdom points out, green consuming "leaves totally unanswered the basic
questions about global equality and the chronic poverty and suffering of the
millions of people in the Third World. ...There is a real danger that green
consumerism will divert attention from the real need to change institutional
structures." Green consuming labeling schemes, they conclude, "must complement,
not become a substitute for firm goverment action."
Green consuming is still consuming, which is the fundamental paradox. The
answer to the problem we face is not only to consume appropriately; it is
primarily to consume less. Green labeling schemes are similar in philosophy
to the end-of-pipeline pollution control strategies that have failed to stem
pollution. They put a dent in the pollution problem, but they do not solve it.
The key to protecting the planet is to prevent a problem at the source, rather
than tinkering with it after it is already created. In the consumer society,
this means intervening early in the game in the decisions about what is
produced and how it is produced. A society in which consumption is conscious
and restrained requires that new and different decisions be made in corporate
boardrooms as well as in national capitals, decisions that put the needs of the
planet ahead of the profits of the corporation. []
(Debra Lynn Dadd is editor of "The Earthwise Consumer" and author of the
forthcoming book, "Nontoxic and Natural and Earthwise" [Tarcher]. Andre
Carothers is editor of "Greenpeace" magazine.)
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SIDEBARS FROM THE ARTICLE
HOW TO BUY RIGHT:
-----------------
First, ask yourself if you really need this product, regardless of whether or
not it calls itself "environmentally friendly". This should eliminate bleach,
fabric softener, drain cleaner, air freshener, everything in aerosol cans,
disposable cameras, electric can openers and hundreds of other cleaners,
appliances, and plastic trinkets that some ad copywriter is convinced you
couldn't do without.
Buy the product with the least packaging, and write letters to companies
that insist on wrapping everything in layers of plastic and paper.
Inform yourself, using the dozens of resources available in this magazine
and elsewhere, about boycott targets, non-toxic alternatives, how to make it
at home or do without it.
Elect people to office who will do the right thing - people who are willing
to address problems created by the packaging industry, the oil companies,
the chemical manufacturers and the investment community.
A FIELD GUIDE TO THE ENVIRONMENTALLY BENIGN PRODUCT
---------------------------------------------------
(An extremely rare beast. If sighted, purchase immediately.)
It is not obnoxiously frivolous, like the new electric pepper mill.
It releases no persistent toxins into the environment during production,
use, or disposal.
It is made from recycled material or renewable resources extracted in a
way that does not damage the environment.
It is durable and reusable first, or recyclable or truly biodgradable next.
It is responsibly and minimally packaged.
It includes information on manufacturing, such as location, labor practices,
animal testing, and the manufacturer's other business.
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GREENPEACE REPORT: THE DEGRADABLE PLASTICS SCAM
"[Degradable bags] are not the answer to landfill crowding or littering...
degradability is just a marketing tool...We're talking out of both sides of
our mouths when we want to sell bags. I don't think the average customer
knows what degradability means. Customers don't care if it solves the solid-
waste problem. It makes them feel good." -Spokesperson for Mobil Chemical
Company, manufacturer of Hefty degradable trash bags.
You are being duped. Most of the products hailed as biodegradable in the
marketplace today are little better than their "non-biodegradable" counter-
parts. Biodegradability means one thing: the material is capable of being
broken down by natural processes into pieces small enough to be consumed by
microorganisms in the soil. Plastics, as petrochemical products, are not the
outcome of biological evolution, so living things lack the enzymes that can
break them down to a molecular level where they can be taken and reincorpor-
ated into living things.
So what do these materials do? According to a study commissioned by
Greenpeace and conducted by the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems,
"biodegradable" plastics can be divided into two categories: those to which
starch molecules have been added; and those that have been altered so that
they are sensitive to light and can at some point break into small pieces.
No one has proven that either method breaks down the plastic to the point
where it can be metabolized by microorganisms. But this has not discouraged
manufacturers from making false claims about their "environmental friendli-
ness."
The Greenpeace report, "Breaking Down the Degradable Plastics Scam",
analyzed the claims of additive suppliers and plastics manufacturers such
as Du Pont, Ecoplastics and Archer Daniels Midland. It determined that none
of these major manufacturers could support their claims that their products
were "biodegradable". The only true biodegradable plastics are those made
from natural polymers such as ICI's PHBV, which is produced by bacteria, and
cellophane, which is made of cellulose produced by plants. These products
are not in general commercial use because they are currently too expensive
or have been replaced by mass-produced plastics. Cellophane has the additional
drawback of releasing toxins during manufacture.
Two other concerns stem from these claims of biodegradability. First of all,
more than 1,000 additives and colorants, such as cadmium, are used to modify
plastics, and these may prove toxic in the environment. The tests for toxicity
performed by these companies are inadequate to support their claims of safety,
according to the Greenpeace report. And secondly, the role of "biodegrad-
ability" in solving the garbage crisis is highly questionable. Reducing
and eliminating packaging entirely, rather than tinkering with the contents
of the waste stream, is the best solution to the problem.
/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\_/\
This file will begin degrading within 15 days of exposure to ultraviolet
light...and will continue the process until it turns into a non-toxic
environmentally safe dust in 60 to 90 days.
Yeah right, a load of bullshit.
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If you buy a product that is labeled in a manner as to claim it environmentally
"safe", I suggest you get an address off the package and write the company
that manufactured the product to see if it is truly benign to the environment
or if you've stumbled onto another industrial giant masking its planetary
destruction with the green consuming scams and lies.
Leave toxicity to the Followers of Fetus, not to the environment.
- Gross Genitalia.
(C)opied right from Greenpeace Bimonthly.
My comments are my own and protected by a big fetus named Ralph.
Green Consuming In Perspective, Green Consuming Unmasked.
July 5, 1990. Toxic File #70.
