It’s in your toothpaste, your chocolate, your lipstick, your detergent, and even your ice cream. In fact, palm oil is in more than 50 percent of all packaged products sold in America’s grocery stores, and the ingredient, when not responsibly sourced, is wreaking havoc on our environment.  Sadly, this issue over palm oil production isn’t new and large corporations that promised to source this ingredient transparently and responsibly, like Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson&Johnson, and PepsiCo, are not upholding their end of the bargain.

Tropically grown, palm oil originated in Western Africa, but can thrive anywhere that heat and rain are plentiful. Today, according to Say No to Palm Oil, crops are “grown throughout Africa, Asia, North America, and South America, with 85 percent of all palm oil globally produced and exported from Indonesia and Malaysia, but most of the time not using sustainable measures.”  Although this doesn’t sound malicious, the impact on the environment and its residents, both human and animal, is truly devastating.

The World Wildlife Federation claims “palm oil is the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet,” and because of this, the demand for usable land in order to grow crops has risen drastically. Uncontrolled and unregulated clearing of these forests done to make way for palm oil plantations has resulted in the destruction of the biodiversity and ecosystems in the countries where it is produced. This has not only affected native species who called the forests home, but it is also believed to be a significant contributor to climate change. Moreover, the removal process is known to involve the burning of healthy trees and undergrowth, letting off large amounts of smoke and polluting its surroundings, “making Indonesia the third highest greenhouse gas emitter in the world,” says Say No to Palm Oil.

Many of the 300,000 different animals and wildlife that inhabit the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra are injured, killed, and displaced during deforestation practices used to clear land to make way for palm oil plantations. Orangutans in particular have been severely victimized, with government data showing that more than 50,000 have already died over the course of twenty years as a direct result of palm oil production. It’s said that orangutans have been found buried alive, while others have been killed from machete, guns, and other weapons, and mothers are specifically targeted by poachers so that their babies can be taken or sold as pets or entertainment for tourism parks.

Although the lure of the palm oil trade is one that claims to benefit the native people by bringing development to poor regions, the effects are actually quite the opposite. Governments allow these large corporations to seize land from the indigenous people for their own financial benefit. Furthermore, palm oil is believed to be linked to child labor in Indonesia and Malaysia who are afflicted by heat exhaustion, cuts and bruises, and little to no pay for their efforts.

So how is this perpetuated by big businesses? According to a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, the large corporations that formerly promised their consumers to make a serious effort to phase out irresponsibly sourced palm oil with “no deforestation” pledges are appearing to seriously drop the ball. After a survey of 14 of such companies, the results found that none of them can say with certainty that there is no deforestation being committed by their palm oil suppliers, nor have they published a full list of these suppliers. Three of the companies involved, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson&Johnson, and PepsiCo, are some of the most well-known and worst offenders, not that it comes as any surprise considering these are also the brands that still find the antiquated practice of animal testing acceptable.

Many of these corporations rely on something called GreenPalm certificates endorsed by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which is essentially a lazy attempt at quickly and easily buying “sustainably” sourced palm oil from suppliers that make it seem as though the effort is real, while still opting for regular or irresponsibly sourced product at other times. Greenpeace is said to have criticized both Colgate-Palmolive and PepsiCo for using tactics like these because even with these certificates traceability is poor.

Without action and pressure from consumers, it’s likely that very little will change. Eliminating palm oil entirely would drastically cut back on what you’re able to buy, especially when recalling that there’s an estimated 50 percent of palm oil-containing products in supermarkets, but making small changes, like boycotting the worst offenders or making a concerted effort to do a little research before venturing out to the store could make a big difference. If or until palm oil is required to be identified on labels, it will be up to us as consumers to take a stand against deceptive palm oil production and the devastation it leaves behind.

For a wallet-sized ingredient list of what palm oil can be hidden as in our products, please visit Palm Oil in Disguise.

Let us know your thoughts on palm oil production by visiting the EcoSalon Facebook page.

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Images of Mother and Baby Orangutan, Palm Oil Fruit, and Palm Oil Fruit Truck via Shutterstock

The post Deceptive Palm Oil Production is Still Destroying the Environment, and Everything in its Path appeared first on EcoSalon.

The Chinese have a light environmental impact—and, paradoxically, a lot of green guilt.

The National Geographic Society and GlobeScan‘s Greendex report had some disheartening findings this year for Americans: We are the nation that is ranked last in the world for sustainable behavior, and yet we’re also the most optimistic about our individual actions having a positive impact on the environment. That is to say: Americans are colossally delusional when it comes to our own sustainable practices.

The Greendex is a massive survey that questions 17,000 consumers in over 17 countries on their housing, transportation and food choices. Among these countries, which include China, Brazil and India, the United States has the least environmentally conscious consumers on the planet. And the United States has ranked last on the survey every year since it was started, in 2008.

GlobeScan’s director of sustainability, Eric Whan, points a finger at our culture of consumption. “Greenwashing” gives many Americans the idea that they can buy their way into eco-consciousness, without taking into account the sheer volume of consumption. Americans are also the most likely to drive alone in a car or truck; the least likely to take public transportation, and the least likely to walk or ride a bike to their destination. Yet only 21 percent of Americans felt guilty about their impact on the environment.

On the plus side, Americans were most likely to buy used goods, and they’re relatively more likely to recycle—although Canadian, German, British and Australian consumers all recycle more. Moreover, the United States Department of Agriculture’s certification program makes it easier for Americans to find and purchase organic produce.

Consumers in India, China and Brazil have a much lighter environmental impact on the whole, even as they report greater feelings of guilt regarding their own sustainable practices. Whan speculates that in countries where the green guilt is higher, there’s a greater sense that environmental issues have real impacts on peoples’ health and quality of life.

Nicole Darnall, a researcher at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University who was not involved in the survey, speculated that green guilt might be the least in those countries that are still debating whether climate change is an issue. In general, people were more inclined to report themselves as being more environmentally responsible than they already were. At the very least, knowing that there is a such a wide gap between our attitudes and our practices might give us all a little push to overcome it.

Curious about how you measure up? Calculate your own Greendex score here.

Image: johnmcga

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Pennies are useless clutter, so why are they still around?

We’ve all been there. You buy something at the store, pay cash, and then stand there counting pennies to lessen the load on your wallet and foist them onto the store, all while the clerk watches impatiently and the people in line behind you fume.

What good are pennies? No one wants to carry them around and they pile up in your home. You fill containers because you can’t use them to buy anything in a vending machine or pay a toll, so there is nearly no benefit to carrying them around. Perhaps you pay electronically with a debit or credit card, so pennies don’t plague you, but try paying in cash, and you can’t escape them.

Even if you take away the annoyance factor, pennies are bad for the environment being made of 3% copper and 97% zinc, heavy metals that must be mined. Currently the largest zinc mine in the U.S., Red Dog Mine, has had problems with toxins entering the air as metal-laden dust, and metals leaching into the ground and water, prompting a lawsuit from communities downstream from its operations.

Metal mining becomes more expensive as the value of heavy metals goes up. As of 2010, it cost the government 1.79 cents to create each penny. The U.S. Mint created four billion pennies in 2010 at a $32 million loss. Lawmakers looked at all the items on the budget and cut funds for education and other much needed programs, but decided to keep churning out pennies at a financial loss.

The biggest argument against eliminating pennies is that rounding prices to the nearest nickel would cost consumers money, however, those paying electronically wouldn’t be affected, only consumers paying cash. A 2006 study showed that consumers actually gained about one cent for every 40 transactions, which essentially means that stores and consumers broke even.

Getting rid of the penny also cuts down on wasting time. Consumers and clerks spend at least a few seconds during each transaction that the customer digs for pennies or the clerk counts out change. Studies estimate that consumers spend more than 12 hours a year dealing with pennies, and that doesn’t include rolling them and taking them to the bank to trade them in.

One California business has taken matters into its own hands. Mike’s Bikes has banned pennies in its nine stores. The company is rounding each cash transaction down, in favor of the customer every time. Mike’s Bikes estimates that by eliminating pennies, it will save over $5,000 a year, and it wants to pass on some of those savings to their customers.

Why are we still stuck with this fiscally useless and environmentally damaging clutter? The penny debate has been raging since 2001, when U.S. Representative Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) introduced legislation to eliminate it. The legislation failed and despite numerous arguments to retire it, a decade later the (bad) penny still keeps turning up.

image: tattooed jj

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