Choices can be extremely difficult

Dadd and Carothers ask:"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?" (1990, p. 12)

Other choices can be equally difficult. Green consumers tend to prefer natural fibres rather than synthetics, but the cotton industry and large-scale sheep grazing also result in significant environmental problems. The debates over whether plastic packaging is better or worse than paper packaging for the environment, or whether milk bottles are better than cartons, are sure to confuse consumers.

Official systems of green labelling, such as Environmental Choice Australia, have been introduced into Australia to combat the use of false claims by marketers. However, official green labels can be limited, too. The Australian Consumers Association has pointed out that endorsement is for specific criteria and that it says nothing about the total environmental impact of the product. A detergent with a green label for being free of phosphates might be overpackaged and use high amounts of energy in its manufacture. This could give consumers a false idea about the environmental merits of a product.

Recently Environmental Choice Australia endorsed "Insinkerators" which macerate food scraps in the sink and allow them to go down the drain. These devises not only add good compost material to the load going to sewerage treatment plants but they represent an unnecessary, energy-intensive consumer item.

The ESD working group on manufacturing points out that any judgement about whether a product is ecologically sustainable is extremely complex, requiring long-term assessment from manufacture to disposal, and taking consideration of how long the product will last, whether it can be reused or recycled, whether it is biodegradable, how much energy it consumes and how efficiently it uses resources. Other matters that need to be considered include the way the product will be used, transported, distributed, marketed and packaged.

Back...