Wallet Mouth

Garbage patch kids

I've been thinking about bags—and, more generally, plastic—a lot lately, and not just because of BPA.

For one thing, the final phase of San Francisco's plastic-bag ban just went into effect: as of yesterday, pharmacies can no longer hand out their heretofore fave kind of sack. For another, I just read this post from Sightline Daily (via Terrapass's blog), which contends that the importance of the paper vs. plastic choice is dwarfed by the choice of what you put in the bag.

That may be true in the embodied-energy sense—embodied energy being what's required to manufacture, supply to the point of use, and disassemble or dispose of something. But the unfortunate fact is that lots of bags and other plastic items never get properly disposed of (whatever that means) and instead end up polluting our oceans. A great number of them congregate in what's known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Two web videos explore that floating dump in compelling ways. The first episode of "Gorilla in the Greenhouse," SustainLane's web-video series for kids, raises awareness about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the evils of plastic pollution at the same time as it promotes eco-consciousness and action on the part of the next generation.

For the grown-up set, there's "Garbage Island," a 12-part VBS.TV series in which a group of "non-hippie environmentalists" takes a three-week boat trip to the North Pacific Gyre to find the garbage patch and analyze its waters. What surprised them (and me as well) was that the patch is not actually a visible clump the size of Texas; rather, it's a dense accumulation of debris (the size of Texas). "I came out here expecting to see a trash dump, with pieces you could pull out of the water," the narrator says. "But what I got was an even ruder awakening. Looking out, you don't see the garbage; most of the time you just see the water. But what's in the water is 1,000 times worse than a Coke bottle. It's every part of a Coke bottle busted down into a little digestible morsel."

The plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch disintegrates into its component polymers, and those broken-down bits act as a sponge for persistent organic pollutants. The horrifying realization is that the garbage patch represents much more than pollution; our castoffs have actually changed the composition of the ocean, in not-so-nice ways. As the narrator puts it, "It's not a matter of pulling shit out [of the water]; it's preparing our systems for the change that's on its way. It's part of the ocean now. We've consigned ourselves to eating our own shit." 

Pretty sobering stuff. In fact, you might want to watch the more-upbeat "Gorilla" afterward. That way you can imagine all the kiddies of today getting inspired, and then becoming savvy, and growing up to find ways to deal effectively with the change that's on its way.

A formula for confusion?

Speaking of sugar, today's New York Times features a story about a controversy surrounding Similac's organic infant formula. I found it interesting because it represents another angle on the question of what "organic" means, something I'm currently exploring in the area of personal-care products.

Consumers associate the word "organic" with "healthier," but that's arguably not the case here. That's because Similac's formula is sweetened with sucrose, as opposed to lactose, and pediatricians worry that it could increase the risk of childhood obesity. 

In Europe, the article points out, formulas sweetened with sucrose will be prohibited by the end of 2009, thanks to the recommendation of the EU's Scientific Committee on Food, "which found that sucrose provided no particular nutritional advantages, could, in rare cases, bring about a fatal metabolic disorder, and might lead to overfeeding."

Technically speaking, Similac's product is organic—the sugar cane was grown in accordance with the USDA's standards, after all—but does the choice of organic sucrose over organic lactose as an ingredient violate the spirit of "organic"? And if it does, would it be desirable or even possible for the "organic" designation to try to control such things?

How sweet it isn't

Last weekend Mr. Wallet Mouth and I bumped into a friend at a concert, and we invited him back to our place for a nightcap—by which we meant a slice of locally made banana cream pie with organic chocolate syrup. On our walk home, our friend prepared himself with dinner from one of our neighborhood tacquerias and a bottle of Coca-Cola, which he bought with some excitement, since it was Mexican Coca-Cola. Mexican Coca-Cola is still made with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, and pop purists insist that the American franchises' recipes, which almost always use the latter to save money, just don't taste quite right.

Taste is just where it begins. These days it seems just about everyone is aware of the manifold problems with corn syrup, the high-fructose variety in particular. And not just for its health consequences—the stuff is being singled out (perhaps a tad unfairly) as the root of America's obesity epidemic—but its economic ones as well; according to this piece by Linda Joyce Forristal, "just four companies control 85 percent of the $2.6 billion business—Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Staley Manufacturing Co. and CPC International."

Nowadays, of course, the big story is how those same companies, a.k.a. Big Corn, are pushing hard for a patently misguided ethanol-centric answer to our country's energy woes. Corn—and HFCS—just can't seem to get any respect. No wonder no self-respecting (read: marketable) "whole" food would contain it.

But it appears consumers with a sweet tooth are caught between a rock and the hard candy. Though not for her precise reasons, it seems my mother wasn't wrong to scorn sugar. Partway through Fred Pearce's Confessions of an Eco Sinner, a provocative firsthand account of the British author's attempt to find the moral high ground in a wide range of personal lifestyle decisions of the paper-or-plastic variety, I encountered this eyebrow-raising pair of paragraphs:

Sugar is the ultimate monocultural crop, and it is grown on a prodigiously large scale. In seven countries, including Mauritius and Barbados, it covers more than half of the entire land area. In many more, including Swaziland, sugar occupies most of the cultivated land. Rainforests and wetlands and rich pastures have all been cleared for the crop. Elsewhere, from India to Queensland and Barbados to Fiji, sugar is one of the major causes of the emptying of rivers and aquifers. In the Indian state of Maharashtra sugar covers just 3 percent of the land, yet takes 60 per cent of the state's irrigation water.

Sugar is the main cause of the rampant soil degradation in Cuba and the almost complete deforestation of Haiti. A study by the environment group WWF concluded that 'the production of sugar cane has probably caused a greater loss of biodiversity on the planet than any other single crop.' Sugar is a menace...

I'm enjoying, and highly recommend, Pearce's book, but ouch. And we were just rediscovering the joys of banana cream pie, too.

The thin green line, part 1

Most people are familiar with the concept of organic food. We may be vague on the details, but we know in a general way that for a higher price, we can buy an assurance that pesticides and other chemicals that could harm us or the environment were not used in its production. Every time we pay that premium, we vote with our wallets. 

But the effects of that choice are not as simple as supporting the producers we buy from. Our votes are also changing the marketplace. The extra money consumers are willing to spend on organic products has created a "green rush" that goes beyond food. As you have no doubt noticed, the word "organic" is popping up in other product categories as well. Perhaps you've bought an organic cotton shirt, for example, or organic shampoo. 

But hold on. I would like to pause here to ask you to think about something. 

What, exactly, does it mean to you for a shampoo to be organic? Can you think of things that you would expect to be in it—or, more important, not to be in it? 

Until as recently as 2005, the use of the word "organic" in the U.S. personal-care product area was meaningless, since no one regulated it at all. Today, no less than three certification standards are positioning themselves in the sector, each with a different set of rules and a different appeal to authority. 

This is the first in a series of posts relaying what I've been able to learn about this corner of the organic standards landscape. 

As I mentioned in a recent post, starting in 2005, personal-care products were allowed to be certified to the USDA's National Organic Program. In March, another organic certification was announced, and there's a bit of a controversy swirling around it. 

The label is called OASIS (for Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards), and it was launched by a trade association of the same name that includes big industry players such as Estee Lauder, Hain Celestial, and L'Oreal, as well as a number of smaller brands. 

The new certification is based on two principles, according to its standards (downloadable on the website): "to promote the increased use of organic raw materials to make the ingredient building blocks of Health and Beauty Products" and "to exclude chemistry that results in non-sustainable products wherever possible." In order to bear the OASIS "Organic" seal, products must contain at least 85 percent organically produced agricultural material, excluding water and salt. That percentage is slated to rise to 90 in 2010 and to 95 in 2012. 

As I mentioned in my post, OASIS is named in a lawsuit filed on April 28 by Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, which contends that the certification constitutes false advertising, since it allows for cleansing agents made from nonorganic ingredients that have been hydrogenated and/or sulfated and preserved with synthetic petrochemicals. (Disclosure: I have met and socialized with Dr. Bronner's president David Bronner and vice president Mike Bronner.) 

"The whole deal with organic is getting away from 'better living through chemistry,'" David Bronner told me. Companies that hydrogenate but want to call their products organic should "figure out some other way to extend shelf life. There are other ways. You look at your concentrations, your pH, the synergies between ingredients, your packaging. You have to think outside the box." His company's soaps, he pointed out, are self-preserving because of their concentrations. 

Bronner is the first to admit that soap, by its very nature, involves a chemical reaction (albeit an ancient one) and can therefore never hope to have an organic percentage higher than the low 80s. That's why his soaps are USDA certified only to the "Made with organic [ingredients]" level, which requires at least 70 percent organic material, rather than to the full-on "Organic" level, which requires 95 percent. However, other Dr. Bronner's products—lotions, balms, etc.—do achieve the 95 percent threshold. Bronner believes that OASIS's more permissive standard misleads consumers and waters down the meaning of the word "organic." 

Of course, that's not how OASIS sees it. For starters, OASIS co-chair Gay Timmons told me, the USDA's National Organic Program certification was designed for food, not personal-care products. When it comes to the stuff that we put in our hair and rub onto our bodies, "most people want an effect. They want personal-care products to function a certain way," she said. The implication being that such functionality is incompatible with the standards of the NOP—which, she said, "knows about farmers and livestock. Nobody there knows diddly about cosmetic chemistry." 

Again that word: chemistry. Central to OASIS's philosophy is the idea that there is good chemistry and bad chemistry, Timmons told me, referring to the "green-chemistry" principles outlined by Paul Anastas and John Warner in their book Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice. "Every process we use has to be something that doesn't cause environmental degradation," she said. "If it's safe for the environment, it's safe for consumers." 

But is it organic? 

To be continued...

Amuse-bouche: Olympic sponsors press China on Darfur

Although 16 of the 19 Olympics sponsors received failing grades in Dream for Darfur’s second “report card,” the other three companies were commended: Kodak and Adidas, which received B+ grades for sending public letters to the U.N. urging action, and McDonald’s, which got a C+ for taking some unspecified private action made known to the nonprofit.

More BPA resources

Two BPA-themed e-newsletters just landed in my in-box. The Center for a New American Dream’s dispatch mentions a helpful site, the Bisphenol A Portal, which compiles news reports about the endocrine-disrupting chemical. Particularly helpful is the site’s Smart Plastics Guide (pdf), which breaks down what all those numbers on plastic containers mean and gives tips on how to avoid BPA.

The most recent e-newsletter from the Environmental Working Group’s points to the BPA cheatsheet on its Enviroblog. Interestingly, the central graphic used on that page is a water bottle made by Nalgene, which recently announced that it will phase out production of BPA-containing bottles.

Soapmaker sues to keep 'organic' claim clean

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps today filed suit under California’s Unfair Competition Law against 10 makers of personal-care products for allegedly using the term “organic” in a deceptive way. The “cheater brands” named in the lawsuit include Avalon Organics, Aveda, Jason, Kiss My Face, and Nature’s Gate.

Dr. Bronner’s products—which include the nation’s top-selling natural brand of liquid soap, as well as lotions, hair rinses, shaving gels, and balms—sport USDA-certified “Organic” and “Made with Organic” seals. are USDA-certified, either to the “Made with organic ingredients” level (for which at least 70 percent of the product must be organic material, excluding water and salt) or to the “Organic” level (at least 95 percent must be organic material, excluding water and salt).

The use of the term “organic” for personal-care products is contentious. Historically, an anything-goes climate prevailed over the sector, since there were no standards governing the “organic” claim for such products. That changed in 2005, when the USDA issued a memorandum clarifying that its National Organic Program did indeed apply to personal-care products that are made up of organic agricultural content.  personal-care products made up of organic agricultural content could be USDA-certified according to its National Organic Program. (They are not required to be, however.)

So now the question is, under what circumstances can the term “organic” be used for personal-care products that don’t adhere to USDA standards? And is it permissible for companies to use the word “organic” in their brand or slogans (as does Avalon Organics, for example) when their products aren’t necessarily organic in the true sense of the word (whatever that may be)?

The press release drops a lot of science, but the basic complaint is that the main cleansing ingredients in the soaps, shampoos, and body washes made by Dr. Bronner’s so-called organic competitors come from conventional (as in nonorganic) agricultural material produced with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, and often contain petrochemical compounds. The release cites as an example the brand Jason (whose slogan is “Pure, Natural & Organic”) and its use of sodium myreth sulfate, “which involves ... the carcinogenic petrochemical Ethylene Oxide, which produces caricinogenic 1,4-Dioxane as a contaminant.”

Reasonable consumers, the suit contends, expect cleansing ingredients in “organic” personal-care products to be made from organic (not conventional) agricultural material, to be produced without synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides, and to be free of petrochemical compounds.

Dr. Bronner’s vice president Mike Bronner told me that one thing organic doesn’t mean is the common practice of the targeted brands of using hydrosols and floral waters, which he equates to “dropping a tea bag of organic material into tap water—and the product is 85 percent water anyway—and than calling that organic, when the other 15 percent contains petrochemicals.”

Now, back to this issue of standards in the personal-care sector. Just last month, a new standard for personal-care products was announced: OASIS (Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards). OASIS is also named in the Dr. Bronner’s lawsuit, which seeks to prohibit it from certifying personal-care products as “organic” because it allows for hydrogenation, sulfation, synthetic petrochemicals, and for cleansing ingredients to be made from nonorganic material.

More on OASIS later this week.

I’ll end this post with the full list of brands named in the suit:

Avalon Organics and Jason (owned by Hain Celestial)
Aveda (Estee Lauder)
Desert Essence Organics (Country Life)
Giovanni
Head Organics (Cosway)
Ikove (Florestas)
Juice Beauty
Kiss My Face
Nature’s Gate (Levlad)
Stella McCartney

Envious on Earth Day, or, The limits of pocketbook activism

Do you ever feel like you’re in the Twilight Zone? Between learning about all this BPA stuff and finishing the book Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, I’m having a touch of reality disconnect. 

You see, most of the time when I blog about the unsavory side of commerce, it has to do with the environment or labor abuses—stuff that’s “out there”—not physical harm that potentially threatens me personally, as well as my loved ones and most everyone else who lives in the U.S.A. Yet here is Stacy Malkan’s book, a well-written account of how most mainstream cosmetics and personal-care products are contributing to pollution “in here”—inside our bodies, women and men alike—and how nobody is protecting us from this contamination, because the industry polices itself. (And it polices itself without concern for the long-term health effects of chemicals, testing only for short-term things like skin irritation.)

I’ve blogged about this issue before, in the context of the Environmental Working Group’s helpful Skin Deep online database (which is discussed in the book). But as I read the screed, the surreality of the situation really started to sink in. After all, these are normal, familiar products that have been sold on the shelves of normal, familiar stores for years and years. Are we all crazy? 

Thankfully, there’s a reality check: the fact that the European Union has banned scads of chemicals regularly in use in the U.S. (and not just in cosmetics, by the way) through its Cosmetics Directive and REACH legislation—both reflections of Europe’s embrace of the precautionary principle. Why, oh why, can’t the U.S. get hip to this eminently reasonable approach? Here’s where my EU envy starts to kick in with a vengeance (Down, EU envy! Down!). 

Of course, it’s not really about where you are. A couple years ago, I spent an afternoon on a gem of a beach in a Mexican eco-reserve that was stunning—except for the waves of garbage that came in with the tide. My sister, Mr. Wallet Mouth, and I made a game of collecting the trash and putting it in a neat pile on shore so that the people who ran the place could have it taken away. Then we found out from them that there wasn’t any “away” where it could be disposed of. This happens every day, they told us. The litter rides in on currents from places as far away as Australia and China. It was a good reminder that the world isn’t such a big place after all, that you can’t necessarily escape the ills of one region by traveling to another.

It’s the same thing with chemicals. Once they’re let loose in the world, we can’t avoid them—a point Not Just a Pretty Face drives home with its opening anecdote about a 2004 study in which randomly selected newborn babies in the U.S. were found to have hundreds of toxic chemicals in their blood.

So on this Earth Day, I’m contemplating the limits of pocketbook activism. It’s simply not always enough. We need to actively pressure companies to do the right thing and actively pressure our government to strengthen its regulatory muscle to keep us and our environment safe.

Amuse-bouche: PETA bites

It’s inspiring to see a values-based organization like PETA doing a large-scale project like this that emphasizes the carrot rather than the stick, so to speak.

The announcement of a prize for the development of commercially viable in vitro meat delighted Mr. Wallet Mouth, who like me is a vegetarian who has spent many a barbecue slinking around the grill with puppy-dog eyes, talking hopefully of the day when he can again indulge in a bacon cheeseburger...

I like the idea of this X Prize–like initiative just as it is, but I did wonder whether the reward is enough to light any fires... which led me to an idea of how to add more fuel: Why not let individuals with an interest in the outcome of such challenges put their money where their mouth is and add to the kitty? I do believe I’ll write PETA to suggest it (and natch, I’ll let you know if anything comes of it).

The A-to-Z’s on BPA

Someone just forwarded me a great resource for parents who are concerned about all this BPA business: a blog called Z Recommends and its report on BPA in children’s feeding products, which rates makers of products such as pacifiers and sippy cups. Besides the online directory, there’s a mobile component. Just text-message “zrecs” followed by the name of the company you’re curious about to 69866 to receive info on your cell phone.

The blog points out one problem that I’d never considered: while the main functional part of any given children’s product may indeed be BPA-free, that’s not necessarily true of the item’s other parts, which are equally likely to end up in kids’ mouths. The “shield” on a pacifier, for example, isn’t meant to be sucked on, but we all know how that goes. Said shields are often made of polycarbonate plastic, which contains the endocrine-disrupting chemical.

The ratings—there are four categories, ranging from Excellent to Poor—are based on “product quality, innovation, the range of products a company offers, their stance on BPA and their openness about sharing information about their products.” Z Recommends also provides a list of companies whose wares are all BPA-free, so you can trust anything they make. I found it heartening that there are 30 names on that list.   

Z Recommends isn’t just for parents, by the way. It’s chock-full of informative posts such as this one, which talks about Wal-Mart U.S., Nalgene, and BPA-related company claims that warrant skepticism.