THE GREEN DILEMMA

Forest and Bird, Issue 266, 1 November 1992, Page 17

THE GREEN DILEMMA

ANN GRAEME,

New Zealand shoppers will soon have some help in choosing products on environmental grounds.

Forest and Rird

tae Ge 2 ie iE ee eee te ii he Sate ee representative on the committee set up to devise an environmental labelling scheme, looks at some of the problems and pitfalls.

~~ N OUR ENLIGHTENED consumer society, ingredients and chemical additives are stated by law, on the container. No longer can you unwittingly poison yourself or your environment. As a consumer "w with a green conscience, that hula make you happy. But does it? The flyspray can states clearly that it contains "no fluorocarbons". Greenie points there. But on closer inspection you find that it contains tetramethrin, d-phenothrin and piperony] butoxide. What do they do? According to the label they kill flies, ants, pets, birds and goldfish — so will they stunt the children, give you migraines, or poison the garden? No consumer can possibly be knowledgeable about all the effects of these chemicals. Information is only useful if you can understand and judge it, and many shoppers yearn for the certainty of an interpreting and trustworthy label, awarded by an impartial body. So it was with high hopes that I joined the government-spon-sored Environmental Choice Management Advisory Committee (ECMAC) set up to advise and advance a labelling system for "green" merchandise. Two years later, sadder ( 8 * oa ii and wiser, I report. EASURING environmental costs is like peeling the scales of an onion. The more you peel the more scales are revealed. Every product we buy passe: through many stages during its life. First there is the collection of the raw materials, which often involves mining or logoino Then there are the manufacturing

processes, the transport and sale of the ~ product, its use, and finally its disposal. At every stage impacts occur which may pollute the soil, water or air, and degrade ecosystems. The process of assessing all these environmental costs is called cradle-to-grave assessment or life-cycle analysis. The process is enormously difficult, time-consuming and expensive, and the moral judgements it poses make the eyes water. The unpalatable truth revealed, unfortunately, is that the label "environmentally friendly" is dishonest, and every manufactured product has an environmental impact. Even the best independent life-cycle analysis depends on a choice of modelling assumptions and methodology. In the end it eventually comes down to value judgements about the comparison of dissimilar impacts.

There can also be a problem in determining how much waste is produced in making, for example, a particular washing machine because of the complexity and commercial secrecy of some of the manufacturing processes. Another issue is that with many products it is not the manufacture of the product itself but the use of it during its lifetime that has the greatest environmental impact. Research on washing machines and dishwashers in Britain indicates that the environmental effects of energy, water and detergent use outweigh any other problems. Thus it is less important what resources are used and what waste generated in the manufacture of washing machines than how energy-efficient they are over their lifetimes. After a bout of indigestion caused by a surfeit of ideals, the Environmental Choice committee has settled for a pragmatic and honest approach to our stated aim "to improve the quality of the environment by minimising the adverse environmental impacts generated by the production, distribution, use and disposal of products". To this end we use the qualifying label of "environmentally preferable’: As the Environmental Choice task groups, comprising members of the committee and co- opted experts, set out to investigate the chosen product categories, it became apparent that, far from an exhaustive life-cycle analysis, we were concentrating on the most obvious environmental feature of each product. In the case of recycled paper and

recycled plastic products, the chosen feature was the percentage of recycled material. In the case of leadacid batteries, the chosen feature was the percentage of recycled lead in the battery. Critics will argue that this leaves layers of potential environmental impacts unexplored. So it does. But the committee does not have the resources to carry out full life-cycle analyses. Instead we aim to label honestly what we judge to be aspects of products offering the potential for some significant environmental gains to New Zealand. Lead-acid batteries provide a good example of the committee’s philosophy. These batteries account for about 80 percent of the inorganic lead used in New Zealand, and they are far from environmentally "friendly". Their production involves the mining and smelting of lead,

* ENVIRONMENTAL CHOICE*

which can pose a significant hazard to human health and the environment. So too can the manufacture and disposal of the sulphuric acid in the batteries. At present, however, there is no other way of starting a car that is as relatively reliable, simple and economical, and environmentally acceptable. Therefore promoting the use of long-life batteries and those that contain high percentages of recycled materials, is currently the most practical way of minimising the adverse impacts of lead acid batteries on the environment. The Environmental Choice specifications require that the batteries contain at least 80 percent recycled lead, and that lead-recycling facilities be provided for spent batteries. This is only a beginning. We also intend to consider the recycling of the sulphuric acid in the batteries when this specification is revised in 1993, when it is expected that such recycling facilities will be available. It is a slow process defining specifications in different product categories and, before being adopted, each is advertised for public comment. As well as lead-acid batteries, the Environmental Choice committee now has criteria available for