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What if I told you there was no such thing as a biodegradable product?  Would it bring to mind images of products you have seen at the local store that are promoted as biodegradable?  Would you think I was swimming out of the mainstream?  Well according to the FTC, it just may be true if you are being marketed a biodegradable product and the seller doesn’t qualify that claim

On June 9th, 2009 the FTC announced “Actions against Kmart, Tender and Dyna-E Alleging Deceptive ‘Biodegradable’ Claims”.  The FTCs release was picked up by many national papers (click here to see the WSJ article) and led to an internet wide chat about what it means.  To boil it down and begin our review of what happened we can summarize the FTC action as acting against Kmart for the marketing of disposable paper plates as biodegradable.   

From the FTC press release:

“Kmart Corp. called its American Fare brand disposable plates biodegradable, Tender Corp. called its Fresh Bath-brand moist wipes biodegradable, and Dyna-E International called its Lightload brand compressed dry towels biodegradable”

From the WSJ article By Brent Kendall, of Dow Jones Newswires:

“The charges involved the discount retailer’s claim that a brand of its paper plates was biodegradable. The FTC said the paper products at issue didn’t decompose quickly enough to qualify for the biodegradable label”

To some this may come as a surprise as we are often led since elementary school science to believe that paper and wood products are biodegradable.  More recently some plastic have been marketed as biodegradable.  But regretfully regardless of what we taught in the past, most items are not by themselves biodegradable, degradable, (oxo) degradable or (hydro) degradable in their marketed state.  Rather it is when exposed to an appropriate environment they can become biodegradable or other. This exposure to an environment that creates biodegradation is referred to as composting or other processes.  Let me provide you with a story I use to illustrate this to companies when I consult with them.

Rather than starting off with paper a more complex material to biodegrade we can say that most reasonable people would consider table scraps (leftover food) to be biodegradable.  They would likely agree that if placed on the floor of a Brazilian rainforest and left there for three months, it is likely that when they returned the scraps would be gone.  But they are likely to agree that if the same table scraps were placed on the Alaskan tundra in the middle of winter, and left alone for three months, once you returned it is reasonable that the scraps would still be there.  This simple yet extreme illustration shows that the environment of disposal and not the product material has the most significant impact on the ability of something to degrade, biodegrade etc…

Since 1992 the FTC has cautioned against such unqualified claims in its GUIDES FOR THE USE OF
ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETING CLAIMS, commonly referred to as the FTC Green Guide.  The FTC never outlawed environmental claims in its guide; rather it required that companies qualify their claims. 

The general guideline provided in the FTC Green Guide:

It is deceptive to misrepresent, directly or by implication, that a product, package or service offers a general environmental benefit. Unqualified general claims of environmental benefit are difficult to interpret, and depending on their context, may convey a wide range of meanings to consumers. In many cases, such claims may convey that the product, package or service has specific and far-reaching environmental benefits.

Specific guidelines for claims of biodegradability from the FTC Green Guide:

Claims of degradability, biodegradability or photodegradability should be qualified to the extent necessary to avoid consumer deception about: (1) the product or package’s ability to degrade in the environment where it is customarily disposed; and (2) the rate and extent of degradation.

These qualifications have become very relevant in light of studies conducted by William L. Rathje, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona.  Dr. Rathje’s studies touched on how much or how little things that we consider to be biodegradable actually biodegrade in a landfill, what I would call the most customary method of disposal in the United States. The department of energy references his work on their kids’ page by stating:

After digging into three landfills in Arizona, California, and Illinois, Rathje found out that there are a lot of garbage myths.  He and his team discovered that it takes a lot longer for paper and other organic wastes to decompose than people previously thought. 

Rathje and his team found newspapers from the late 1970s that were still readable. He found “organic debris—green grass clippings, a T-bone steak with lean and fat, and five hot dogs—[that] looked even better!” 

Rathje’s research suggests that for some kinds of organic garbage, biodegradation goes on for a while and then slows to a standstill. For other kinds, biodegradation never gets under way at all.

So if we make the generalizations that: most American’s dispose of their trash in landfills and biodegradation occurs very slowly in landfills if at all, it’s easier to understand very few products biodegrade when we throw them away. 

Why does this matter? 

Well in the age of Green marketing, if two nearly identical products, with similar prices are placed side by side it is likely that if one is labeled “biodegradable” consumers will buy it for a perceived value added benefit to the environment and society.  Basically they feel they are getting something additional for free.  This advantage puts pressure on other manufactures to follow suit to avoid a loss of market share and before long no one know if a product is better for an environment or not because they all say “me too”.

Are biodegradable products a myth?

Actually there are biodegradable products but in most cases they are more accurately called compostable.  Modern compostable products need to be returned to an industrial compost to guarantee that they will biodegrade within a reasonable time.  Many cities and waste management companies have curbside compost service.  Some local services are very basic and will only accept yard waste in paper bags, while others like those in the cities of San Francisco and Oakland accept compostable plastics.  Once products are composted they return back to soil that has no toxins and is suitable for growing plant life within that have a seal of approval from the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI).  I recommend visiting the BPI website to be more familiar with their certification logo.  There are many more products claiming to be compostable every day, but very few have passed the standards of the BPI.  If those products enter the composting cycle it is possible that they could lead to contamination. 

Now I want to say that I have not had an opportunity to review any testing data related to the products addressed by the FTC.  But it is likely that if they met the standards set by the BPI, Kmart could have simply called them compostable and pursed a BPI logo to avoid all of this.  This would likely have allowed them to market them as “biodegradable in industrial composts”.  Although too many this would seem wordy or of little value, to people in San Francisco and other cities that compost it means a lot, and they are the only ones likely to benefit anyway.  So there was a market to reach if properly addressed.

So there you have it.  More than just a lesson that Kmart has learned, I hope this is a lesson that society will learn from. 

It our world so remember to reduce, reuse and recycle (compost) responsibly where you can or the three Rs may be replaced with ban, tax and prohibit.

Philip

Philip is an environmental consultant.  He has worked with the plastics and national retail industry to develop recycling programs, recycled content products, conduct environmental impact studies and provide environmental marketing guidance. 

Will Greenwash gridlock mean green energy technology from China?

Don’t get me wrong, the United States needs “green energy” which can mean many things to many people.  But today’s AFP coverage of China’s announcement that it “is planning a stimulus package worth 440 billion dollars to expand its renewable energy use” could permanently place it ahead of the US in sustainable energy and create a new energy dependency outside of the middle-east.  (Click here to read the whole article).

Although the Obama administration is committed to renewable energy development and the American energy industry is responding with the promotion of initiatives like “clean coal” (click here to see the counter arguement), the expanded use of natural gas (such as with the T. Boone Picken’s Plan), a new look at nuclear energy, and modest investments in wind an soar energy… are we really going to achieve much relative to a broader Chinese initiative?   It is not that the Chinese government is more capable of throwing money at the challenge, America will always lead in that realm, and rather it is their approach and culture relative to ours that is likely to lead to greater success.  

Lack of development has its advantages.  Large regions in China are still underpowered and under-resourced since development came in the opening to the west in the late 70’s and early 80s.  Even as the Chinese energy industry expanded to meet the growing western demand for Chinese factories it has not kept up.  Energy growth focused on coastal industrial regions and key inland population centers.  But with a recent growth towards developing inland industry China has an opportunity to build a stronger national power grid than the US could ever dream of simply because one doesn’t exist on the scale that the US has had for years.  It is possible that while we are still debating a national smart power grid required to share regionally abundant renewable energy like solar and wind, China could be implementing one on a large scale.  Additionally resistance from legacy industries is removed from the equation. One of the greatest risks we face in an infrastructure like this is cyber-attacks from foreign governments, terrorists and malicious teenagers. The simple nature of an internet controlled smart grid system is that its openness and flexibility may be its greatest weakness.  But in China where the entire country’s internet sits behind government control, often referred to the great firewall of china, could facilitate a smart infrastructure required to spread regional renewable energy across an entire country.

Subsidy…a way of life or an evil of government?  Never before have companies been required to change entire business models on a scale like we are asking energy companies.  For years they have lived on model based on the price of oil and coal spread across regulated rates, basically they were presented with minimal risk for moderate reward.  Now they are asked to invest money in new technologies without knowing what the profit model will yield for years.  Not that greed should control development, but if a company is put at risk for takeover or threatened with bankruptcy during a high risk period of 4-6 years, no CEO is likely to wholeheartedly champion a plan like this.  As a CEO of a large company recently told me, “the only people I answer the board of directors, and they are focused on the value of the company in the short term.”  Under our economic system of risk and reward companies will be asked to pass through extreme periods of risk prior to even knowing the potential reward but it will take courage or other means to get them to follow through.  Going beyond our economic system, the threat of global warming poses a societal risk that doesn’t directly translate in to the need to accept this risk. In China it is possible for the government to subsidize the cost of transition and rates so that artificial profits can be achieved during a period of risk.   I would think that $440B is likely to be part of this subsidized transition.

More than just the scale of investment that China is willing to put in to this effort, but with the advantages of a centralized government, a need for infrastructure development and a willingness to subsidize change places China in a position to be become the global leader in green energy.  Their leadership if successful is not likely to lead rapid quality of life improvements in the US simply because the Chinese appetite for energy is so strong that for years they will consume most of innovations they are capable of achieving and any exports will simply drain money from the American economy and erode our quality of life.

Down but not out…this development in Chinese national environmentalism doesn’t mean that the United States can’t still be the leader.  But if we want to be the leader we have to stop letting environmental NGOs and the energy industry both keep greenwashing us.  NGOs have to understand that industry, by its very nature, needs a plan for profitability that may include transition technologies like natural gas in the Picken’s Plan.  At the same time industry needs to stretch for meaningful results that go beyond minor transitions like the “clean coal” plan and expanded drilling.  Collectively they have ensured is a gridlock that has achieved almost nothing over the past ten years.  In reality we need a defined end-state that we are committed to, just like the extremes that NGOs are calling for, while at the same time we may need to accept profitable transitions that can fund these long term payoffs. One thing the Chinese and Americans both have in common with their greenhouse case challenge is that we all got in to it together.  Yet while the Chinese are more likely to work together to get out of their challenges, we remain divided by greenwashing extremes in ours.  We can be the leader, but time and opportunity may be running out.

Post your thoughts

–GWW

A centralized government can make significant headway with a centralized plan.  I wouldn’t want live under a semi-communist centralized government like China’s, but as a former China foreign area officer for the US military I realize the fact that they do have advantages with large scale initiatives. As America looks for ways to further advance energy reforms we are mired by our many divisions, be they conservative v. liberal; industry v. environmentalist; upper v. middle class; or regional energy interests v. others.  In China these types of divides aren’t likely to significantly delay action.  Although they will be outwardly visible in the beginning and likely to linger in hidden inner politics for years, the Chinese way is to accept more than resist in causes like this.  From wide spread urban renewal to the Three Gorges Dam project China has shown that although there will be debate major change is manageable. There just won’t be major protests, revealing news exposes, or court cases blocking construction.  In 2008 China was able to ban ultra-thin plastic bags and require fees for all others with no debate unlike the west where how to manage plastic bags has gone on for years.  Yes large scale national energy reforms are likely to disenfranchise many in China, but the basic fact is that they are more likely to establish a system that will foster the growth of renewable energy technology applications before similar infrastructure will exist in the United States.

Its your environment too...don't let others Greenwash it

In the begining…

As the “green” movement has taken root we are now bombarded with products, ads, companies, and even environmental groups claiming to have the solution to many of our “eco” problems.  After researching many of these products and claims I have found out that many of them are profit or objective garnering “greenwashings”.  So what is greenwashing…?

 green·wash (grēn’wŏsh’, -wôsh’)

1. (v) The dissemination of misleading information by an organization to conceal its abuse of the environment in order to present a positive public image.
2. (n) The information so disseminated.

According to Terra Choice Environmental Marketing, there are seven specific sins of greenwashing:

1. Sin of the Hidden Trade-off–wouldn’t it be terrible if paper was made from sustainable trees but the process poisoned the well
2. Sin of No Proof–many biodegradable or degradable claims aren’t supported by test data from third party labs or in accordance with recognized standards
3. Sin of Vagueness–if a label read ”contains up to 90% recycled content” it wouldn’t be uncommon for it to only have 10%…in a case like this it should state contains at least 10%.
4. Sin of Worshiping False Labels–often when there aren’t certifying agencies or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) companies resort to printing labels that look like certification seals
5. Sin of Irrelevance–would an organic cigarette be any more healthy than non-organic one?
6. Sin of Lesser of Two Evils–if a manufacturing process produced less of one chemical discharge but substituted it with an equally hazardous one it would be irrelevant to market the absence of the first as a product improvement
7. Sin of Fibbing–often ads or claims are just false, either in how they present their attributes or how they stack up to the competition.

This blog www.greenwashwatcher.com and forum www.greenwashdebate.com were established to give consumers a voice in in this new world. 

Our hope is that we can:

• “out” environmental frauds be they products, companies or NGOs
• link consumers with mainstream scientific data
• laud products, companies and NGOs that make significant contributions to our environment

Hope you have an eco day

-The Greenwash Watcher (GWW)