Ghana, China, India, Hong Kong, and probably elsewhere – a REAL environmental issue

Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground

6.23.09 / PBS Frontline

On the outskirts of Ghana’s biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah.

Correspondent Peter Klein and a group of graduate journalism students from the University of British Columbia have come here as part of a global investigation — to track a shadowy industry that’s causing big problems here and around the world.

Their guide is a 13-year-old boy named Alex. He shows them his home, a small room in a mass of shanty dwellings, and offers to take them across a dead river to a notorious area called Agbogbloshie.

Agbogbloshie has become one of the world’s digital dumping grounds, where the West’s electronic waste, or e-waste, piles up — hundreds of millions of tons of it each year.

The team meets with Mike Anane, a local journalist who has been writing about the boys at this e-waste dump.

“Life is really difficult; they eat here, surrounded by e-waste,” Anane tells them. “They basically are here to earn a living. But you can imagine the health implications.”

Some of the boys burn old foam on top of computers to melt away the plastic, leaving behind scraps of copper and iron they can collect to sell. The younger boys use magnets from old speakers to gather up the smaller pieces left behind at the burn site.

Anane says he used to play soccer here as a kid, when it was pristine wetland. Since then, he’s become one of the country’s leading environmental journalists.

“I’m trying to get some ownership labels,” Anane tells reporters. “I’m collecting them because you need them as evidence. You need to tell the world where these things are coming from. You have to prove it. Now, just look,” he says, pointing to an old computer with the label: “School District of Philadelphia.”

When containers of old computers first began arriving in West Africa a few years ago, Ghanaians welcomed what they thought were donations to help bridge the digital divide. But soon exporters learned to exploit the loopholes by labeling junk computers “donations,” leaving men like Godson to sort it out.

Godson, one of the e-waste dealers who have set up shop close to the port, shows the contents of the container he has bought.

“Some are from Germany and the U.K., and also from America,” he says, when asked where the equipment has come from. He sorts through them looking for working electronics that can be sold. He says that maybe 50 percent of the shipment is junk and the rest he will be able to salvage in some way.

After it’s sorted, a lot of the contents of the container will still be dumped at the burn site outside of town.

Hard drives that can be salvaged are displayed at open-air markets. Off camera, Ghanaians admit that organized criminals sometimes comb through these drives for personal information to use in scams.

As part of the investigation, one of the students buys a number of hard drives to see what is on them, secretly filming the transaction to avoid the seller’s suspicions.

The drives are purchased for the equivalent of US$35.

The students take the hard drives to Regent University in the Ghanaian capital and ask computer scientist Enoch Kwesi Messiah to help read what is on them.

Within minutes, he is scrolling through intimate details of people’s lives, files left behind by the hard drives’ original owners.

There is private financial data, too: credit card numbers, account information, records of online transactions the original owners may not have realized were even there.

“ I can get your bank numbers and I retrieve all your money from your accounts,” Messiah says. “If ever somebody gets your hard drive, he can get every information about you from the drive, no matter where it is hidden.”

That’s particularly a problem in a place like Ghana, which is listed by the U.S. State Department as one of the top sources of cyber crime in the world. And it’s not just individuals who are exposed. One of the drives the team has purchased contains a $22 million government contract.

It turns out the drive came from Northrop Grumman, one of America’s largest military contractors. And it contains details about sensitive, multi-million dollar U.S. government contracts. They also find contracts with the defense intelligence agency, NASA, even Homeland Security.

When the drives’ data are shown to James Durie, who works on data security for the FBI, he’s particularly concerned about the potential breach at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

“The government contracting process is supposed to be confidential. If I know how you’re hiring the people for security related job, TSA air marshals, then I can prepare a person to fit that model and get my guy in,” Durie says. “Once I have my guy in, you have no security.”

Northrop Grumman refused to speak to FRONTLINE/World on camera. But they did issue a statement saying the potential security threat was disconcerting, and they pledged to investigate.

Right now there are no tough U.S. laws regulating the disposal of e-waste, leaving companies and consumers to sort out the claims of recyclers on their own.

Following the recycling process as a consumer would, students drop off some e-waste at a facility on America’s West Coast. They are wearing a hidden camera and are assured that what they are bringing in will be disposed of safely and locally.

One worker at the facility tells them: “What they literally do is dump it into a blast furnace and it burns it all up; and all they get out of it is a bunch of ash and some of the precious metal. Everything else gets consumed, burnt. And that’s an actual fact.”

The team notes the container numbers leaving the facility and, using public records, traces where they’re sent. A few weeks later, their reporting takes them to the port of Hong Kong.

Just a few miles from Hong Kong’s port, hidden behind eight-foot-high corrugated walls, are mountains of computer monitors, printer cartridges from Georgia, relics of old video arcades…

In China, e-waste has become big business.

The southern Chinese city of Guiyu has been completely built around the e-waste trade. Miles and miles of nothing but old electronics.

Jim Puckett is an environmental activist credited with discovering this harmful e-waste route to China. He has accompanied the team to Guiyu, a place he first visited eight years ago, and calls it the dirty little secret of the hi-tech industry.

Video Puckett shot in 2001 was the first anyone had documented showing Western computers being dumped in Guiyu. He found tens of thousands of people working here in the toxic trade. On this return visit, Puckett says things have gotten worse.

“I was there first in 2001 and it was shocking enough then. It had gone from very bad to really horrific. And what is happening there is rather apocalyptic.”

One of the most disturbing things Puckett points out is happening behind closed doors. Women literally cooking circuit boards to salvage the computer chips, which have trace amounts of gold.

“All these old mother boards and other types of circuit boards are being cooked day in and day out, mostly by women, sitting there, breathing the lead tin solders. It’s just quite devastating,” Puckett says.

To find out who is making money off this hazardous work, the team travels to downtown Hong Kong, home to hundreds of companies that import e-waste into China. No one here will speak to the reporters on camera, so they film surreptitiously.

Puckett and one of our reporters arrange to meet an e-waste broker willing to explain the e-waste trade from the inside.

The man explains how hundreds of thousands of tons of American e-waste makes its way into China, despite laws intended to stop it.

“If we were to send you our material, would our recyclers get in trouble with the Chinese government if they find their material coming into mainland?” Puckett asks the broker.

“I can only say that if they get caught it has nothing to do with you. Because I buy from you, and then I sell to him. He is buying from me; he’s not buying from you,” the man explains.

He says that since Hong Kong ships millions of containers to the U.S. and most return empty, it’s cheap to load them with e-waste, and too expensive to dispose of the waste safely — no matter what recyclers claim.

When the reporters ask what sort of due environmental due diligence there is, the man responds:

“I can only say one thing, if you want to do it environmentally, you have to pay. They have to invest in machinery, labor, everything. It isn’t worth it to pay so much money.”

On the last trip of the assignment, the team heads to India. No longer just a dumping ground, India is now generating its own e-waste at an alarming rate, thanks to a growing middle class with a taste for high tech.

“Last year, we sold more than seven million PCs in India,” says Indian businessman Rohan Gupta. “We generated 330,000 tons of electronic waste within India. So all these are going to comeback to the waste stream sooner or later. It’s a growing industry.”

Gupta is giving a tour of his state-of-the-art facility outside Bangalore.

He is betting on a new Indian law that could force its high tech industry to recycle responsibly and maybe one day put the digital dumps out of business.

At another recycling plant in Bangalore, they are literally trying to spin the waste into gold, refining the scrap in a safe environment and fashioning it into watches and jewelry they market as eco friendly.

Plants like this could become part of a global network of certified e-waste recyclers that Puckett’s group is trying to get off the ground. But even Puckett realizes it’s an uphill struggle.

“Even if you have a state-of-the-art facility in a country like India, the free market there will send it to the lowest common denominator, to the worst facilities where people are sitting on the streets just picking through it by hand,” he says. “It’s a myth to think that you can just solve the problem immediately with technology alone.”

The witch’s brew of toxic chemicals hidden in bottled water

Bottled water contains disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue, and pain medication

10.08 / Olga Naidenko, Nnenka Leiba, Renee Sharp, Jane Houlihan/ Environmental Working Group

The bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, but comprehensive testing by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reveals a surprising array of chemical contaminants in every bottled water brand analyzed, including toxic byproducts of chlorination in Walmart’s Sam’s Choice and Giant Supermarket’s Acadia brands, at levels no different than routinely found in tap water. Several Sam’s Choice samples purchased in California exceeded legal limits for bottled water contaminants in that state. Cancer-causing contaminants in bottled water purchased in 5 states (North Carolina, California, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland) and the District of Columbia substantially exceeded the voluntary standards established by the bottled water industry.

Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry does not disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts. Instead, the industry hides behind the claim that bottled water is held to the same safety standards as tap water. But with promotional campaigns saturated with images of mountain springs, and prices 1,900 times the price of tap water, consumers are clearly led to believe that they are buying a product that has been purified to a level beyond the water that comes out of the garden hose.

To the contrary, our tests strongly indicate that the purity of bottled water cannot be trusted. Given the industry’s refusal to make available data to support their claims of superiority, consumer confidence in the purity of bottled water is simply not justified.

Laboratory tests conducted for EWG at one of the country’s leading water quality laboratories found that 10 popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in 9 states and the District of Columbia, contained 38 chemical pollutants altogether, with an average of 8 contaminants in each brand. More than one-third of the chemicals found are not regulated in bottled water. In the Sam’s Choice and Acadia brands levels of some chemicals exceeded legal limits in California as well as industry-sponsored voluntary safety standards. Four brands were also contaminated with bacteria.

Walmart and Giant Brands No Different than Tap Water

Two of 10 brands tested, Walmart’s and Giant’s store brands, bore the chemical signature of standard municipal water treatment — a cocktail of chlorine disinfection byproducts, and for Giant water, even fluoride. In other words, this bottled water was chemically indistinguishable from tap water. The only striking difference: the price tag.

In both brands levels of disinfection byproducts exceeded safety standards established by the state of California and the bottled water industry:

• Walmart’s Sam’s Choice bottled water purchased at several locations in the San Francisco bay area was polluted with disinfection byproducts called trihalomethanes at levels that exceed the state’s legal limit for bottled water (CDPR 2008). These byproducts are linked to cancer and reproductive problems and form when disinfectants react with residual pollution in the water. Las Vegas tap water was the source for these bottles, according to Walmart representatives (EWG 2008).
• Also in Walmart’s Sam’s Choice brand, lab tests found a cancer-causing chemical called bromodichloromethane at levels that exceed safety standards for cancer-causing chemicals under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65, OEHHA 2008). EWG is filing suit under this act to ensure that Walmart posts a warning on bottles as required by law: “WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer.”
• These same chemicals also polluted Giant’s Acadia brand at levels in excess of California’s safety standards, but this brand is sold only in Mid-Atlantic states where California’s health-based limits do not apply. Nevertheless, disinfection byproducts in both Acadia and Sam’s Choice bottled water exceeded the industry trade association’s voluntary safety standards (IBWA 2008a), for samples purchased in Washington DC and 5 states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and California). The bottled water industry boasts that its internal regulations are stricter than the FDA bottled water regulations(IBWA 2008b), but voluntary standards that companies are failing to meet are of little use in protecting public health.

Figure 1. Pollutants in Walmart and Giant Bottled Water Exceed Industry and California Standards

The California legal limit of 10 parts per billion (ppb) for total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) in bottled water has been set by the California Health and Safety Code, Division 104, Part 5 (Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law, CDPH 2008). The industry standard, Bottled Water Code of Practice, published by the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA 2008a), also sets a limit for TTHMs at 10 ppb. Two of the TTHM chemicals, bromodichloromethane and chloroform, are regulated in California under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, also known as Proposition 65 (OEHHA 2008). For bromodichloromethane, a concentration above 2.5 ppb exceeds a cancer safety standard, as established by the state of California (OEHHA 2008). The standard is based on the Proposition 65 No Significant Risk Level for bromodichloromethane at 5 micrograms per day. For a water consumption rate of 2 L/day (Title 27, California Code of Regulations, Article 7, Section § 25721), this corresponds to a contaminant concentration in water of 2.5 ppb. The concentration values indicated by the bars correspond to findings from the specific brand purchased at the specific location. For the entire dataset, see section Walmart and Giant Water Exceeds Safety Limits. Two independent samples of Sam’s Choice water were purchased in Oakland, CA, with total trihalomethane levels at 21 and 23 ppb and levels of bromodichloromethane at 7.7 and 8.5 ppb. Two independent samples of Acadia water were purchased in Stafford, VA with total trihalomethane levels at 22 and 23 ppb.

Broad Range of Pollutants Found in 10 Brands

Altogether, the analyses conducted by the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory of these 10 brands of bottled water revealed a wide range of pollutants, including not only disinfection byproducts, but also common urban wastewater pollutants like caffeine and pharmaceuticals (Tylenol); heavy metals and minerals including arsenic and radioactive isotopes; fertilizer residue (nitrate and ammonia); and a broad range of other, tentatively identified industrial chemicals used as solvents, plasticizers, viscosity decreasing agents, and propellants.

The identity of most brands in this study are anonymous. This is typical scientific practice for market-basket style testing programs. We consider these results to represent a snapshot of the market during the window of time in which we purchased samples. While our study findings show that consumers can’t trust that bottled water is pure or cleaner than tap water, it was not designed to indicate pollutant profiles typical over time for particular brands. Walmart and Giant bottled water brands are named in this study because our first tests and numerous followup tests confirmed that these brands contained contaminants at levels that exceeded state standards or voluntary industry guidelines.

The study also included assays for breast cancer cell proliferation, conducted at the University of Missouri. One bottled water brand spurred a 78% increase in the growth of the breast cancer cells compared to the control sample, with 1,200 initial breast cancer cells multiplying to 32,000 in 4 days, versus only 18,000 for the control sample, indicating that chemical contaminants in the bottled water sample stimulated accelerated division of cancer cells. When estrogen-blocking chemicals were added, the effect was inhibited, showing that the cancer-spurring chemicals mimic estrogen, a hormone linked to breast cancer. Though this result is considered a modest effect relative to the potency of some other industrial chemicals in spurring breast cancer cell growth, the sheer volume of bottled water people consume elevates the health significance of the finding. While the specific chemical(s) responsible for this cancer cell proliferation were not identified in this pilot study, ingestion of endocrine-disrupting and cancer-promoting chemicals from plastics is considered to be a potentially important health concern (Le 2008).

With Bottled Water, You Don’t Know What You’re Getting

Americans drink twice as much bottled water today as they did ten years ago, for an annual total of over nine billion gallons with producer revenues nearing twelve billions (BMC 2007; IBWA 2008c). Purity should be included in a price that, at a typical cost of $3.79 per gallon, is 1,900 times the cost of public tap water.¹ But EWG’s tests indicate that in some cases the industry may be delivering a beverage little cleaner than tap water, sold at a premium price. The health consequences of exposures to these complex mixtures of contaminants like those found in bottled water have never been studied.

Unlike public water utilities, bottled water companies are not required to notify their customers of the occurrence of contaminants in the water, or, in most states, to tell their customers where the water comes from, how and if it is purified, and if it is merely bottled tap water. Information provided on the U.S. EPA website clearly describes the lack of quality assurance for bottled water: “Bottled water is not necessarily safer than your tap water” (EPA 2007b). The Agency further adds following consumer information:

Some bottled water is treated more than tap water, while some is treated less or not treated at all. Bottled water costs much more than tap water on a per gallon basis… Consumers who choose to purchase bottled water should carefully read its label to understand what they are buying, whether it is a better taste, or a certain method of treatment (EPA 2007b).

In conjunction with this testing program, EWG conducted a survey of 228 brands of bottled water, compiling information from websites, labels and other marketing materials. We found that fewer than half describe the water source (i.e., municipal or natural) or provide any information on whether or how the water is treated. In the absence of complete disclosure on the label, consumers are left in the dark, making it difficult for shoppers to know if they are getting what they expect for the price.

Figure 2. Walmart and Giant Are Bottling Tap Water

The municipal water sources of the Walmart’s Sam’s Choice and Giant’s Acadia bottled waters were identified through contact with Walmart representatives, their bottled water manufacturer, and city/utility officials; or from the label (Giant). Data on the levels of disinfection byproducts (total trihalomethanes or TTHMs) in these municipal water sources were obtained from Notla Water Authority in Blairsville, Georgia; Las Vegas Valley Water District; and Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission. These data were from tap water tests carried out in 2007, which the water utilities disclosed to their customers in an annual report. For every utility the range of values from lowest to the highest represents the concentrations of TTHMs that were found in the tap water over the course of the year. Notla Water Authority provided a single value for TTHMs, not a range.

This study did not focus on the environmental impacts of bottled water, but they are striking and have been well publicized. Of the 36 billion bottles sold in 2006, only a fifth were recycled (Doss 2008). The rest ended up in landfills, incinerators, and as trash on land and in streams, rivers, and oceans. Water bottle production in the U.S. uses 1.5 million barrels of oil per every year, according to a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ resolution passed in 2007, enough energy to power 250,000 homes or fuel 100,000 cars for a year (US Mayors 2007). As oil prices are continuing to skyrocket, the direct and indirect costs of making and shipping and landfilling the water bottles continue to rise as well (Gashler 2008, Hauter 2008).

Extracting water for bottling places a strain on rivers, streams, and community drinking water supplies as well. When the water is not bottled from a municipal supply, companies instead draw it from groundwater supplies, rivers, springs or streams. This “water mining,” as it is called, can remove substantial amounts of water that otherwise would have contributed to community water supplies or to the natural flow of streams and rivers (Boldt-Van Rooy 2003, Hyndman 2007, ECONorthwest, 2007).

Recommendations

Currently there is a double standard where tap water suppliers provide information to consumers on contaminants, filtration techniques, and source water; bottled water companies do not. This double standard must be eliminated immediately; Bottled water should conform to the same right-to-know standards as tap water.

To bring bottled water up to the standards of tap water we recommend:

• Full disclosure of all test results for all contaminants. This must be done in a way that is readily available to the public.
• Disclosure of all treatment techniques used to purify the water, and:
• Clear and specific disclosure of the name and location of the source water.

To ensure that public health and the environment are protected, we recommend:

• Federal, state, and local policymakers must strengthen protections for rivers, streams, and groundwater that serve as America’s drinking water sources. Even though it is not necessarily any healthier, some Americans turn to bottled water in part because they distrust the quality of their tap water. And sometimes this is for good reason. Some drinking water (tap and bottled) is grossly polluted at its source – in rivers, streams, and underground aquifers fouled by decades of wastes that generations of political and business leaders have dismissed, ignored, and left for others to solve. A 2005 EWG study found nearly 300 contaminants in drinking water all across the country. Source water protection programs must be improved, implemented, and enforced nationwide (EWG 2005b). The environmental impacts associated with bottled water production and distribution aggravate the nation’s water quality problems rather than contributing to their solution.
• Consumers should drink filtered tap water instead of bottled water. Americans pay an average of two-tenths of a cent per gallon to drink water from the tap. A carbon filter at the tap or in a pitcher costs a manageable $0.31 per gallon (12 times lower than the typical cost of bottled water), and removes many of the contaminants found in public tap water supplies.² A whole-house carbon filter strips out chemicals not only from drinking water, but also from water used in the shower, clothes washer and dishwasher where they can volatilize into the air for families to breathe in. For an average four-person household, the cost for this system is about $0.25 per person per day.³ A single gallon of bottled water costs 15 times this amount.

EWG’s study has revealed that bottled water can contain complex mixtures of industrial chemicals never tested for safety, and may be no cleaner than tap water. Given some bottled water company’s failure to adhere to the industry’s own purity standards, Americans cannot take the quality of bottled water for granted. Indeed, test results like those presented in this study may give many Americans reason enough to reconsider their habit of purchasing bottled water and turn back to the tap.

Footnotes.
¹ A recent survey documented bottled water prices ranging from $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon (Food and Water Watch 2007). Retail prices vary widely depending on whether people are buying bottled water in bulk or individual bottles. Given this wide range in prices, EWG assumed a flat $1.00 per liter price per liter (or $3.79 per gallon), which is what most consumers would pay for a typical liter bottle of water bought from a convenience store. In comparison, EPA estimates that tap water costs consumers about $0.002 per gallon, on average, nationwide (EPA 2004).
² EWG compared the prices and capacities of 7 faucet-mounted and pitcher filters. The prices ranged from $19.99 to $39.99 with treatment capacities ranging from 40 gallons to 100 gallons. With this information, we estimate an average cost of these types of systems as $0.31 per gallon.
³ EWG compared 5 different whole house carbon filter units and documented prices in the range between $64.99 to $795 per unit, with life spans between 3 and 36 months. Thus, the annual cost is in the range of $260 – $595 with an average of $375. This leads to an estimated cost of $1.00/day that translates into $0.25 daily cost per person for an average four-person household.

Arsenic, lead, and other heavy metals found in fluoridated water

Cancer-Causing Toxins Detected in Fluoride Chemicals, Says NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation

4.8.09 / New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation / PRNewswire

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Traces of arsenic, copper, lead and other impurities were found in samples of chemicals used to fluoridate public water supplies between the years 2000 and 2006, reports the Centers for Disease Control.(1)

Controversial fluoridation schemes are promoted by special-interest groups such as the American Dental Association which claims adding fluoride chemicals to public water supplies reduces tooth decay.

Arsenic was detected in 43% of the 245 water fluoridation chemicals sampled by NSF International which regulates public water supply additives.(2)

Arsenic may increase cancer risk, according to the EPA which sets the Maximum Contaminant Level Goal of arsenic in water supplies at zero.(3)

Also 3% of the samples contained copper; 2% contained lead; and less than 1% contained barium, chromium, mercury, selenium or thallium. Silicates, the second most prevalent substance in fluoridation chemicals, are not health regulated.

Although no radionuclides or beryllium were found in these samples, 0.4 parts-per-billion is allowed.

Bottled water suppliers, who add fluoride, typically follow the same standards, according to the CDC.(1)

Community water fluoridation uses industrial-waste fluoride (silicofluorides). However, pharmaceutical grade fluoride may also be contaminated. According to the CDC, “Given the volumes of chemicals used in water fluoridation, a pharmaceutical grade of sodium fluoride for fluoridation could potentially contain much higher levels of arsenic, radionuclides, and regulated heavy metals than a NSF/ANSI Standard 60-certified product [the standard that water fluoridation chemicals must meet].”

The FDA regulates bottled water. But it’s almost impossible to know how much fluoride is in the bottle, unless you call the manufacturer, because:

– Domestic bottled water with no added fluoride may contain between 1.4 and 2.4 mg/L fluoride

– Imported bottled water with no added fluoride may not contain fluoride in excess of 1.4 mg/L.

– Domestic bottled water with added fluoride can contain between 0.8 and 1.7 mg/L fluoride

– Imported bottled water with added fluoride may not contain more than 0.8 mg/L fluoride.

Bottlers are not required to list any naturally-occurring fluoride on the labels.(1)

“Fluoridation is irrational whether it’s coming from the tap or the bottle,” says attorney Paul Beeber, President, New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. “It’s time to leave fluoride chemicals and all their contaminants out of every water source.”

Contact: Paul Beeber, J.D. 516-433-8882 nyscof@aol.com

http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof

http://www.FluorideAction.Net

References

(1) www.cdc.gov/Fluoridation/fact_sheets/engineering/wfadditives.htm#7

(2) http://www.nsf.org/business/water_distribution/pdf/NSF_Fact_Sheet.pdf

(3) http://www.epa.gov/safewater/arsenic/index.html

(4) http://www.cdc.gov/Fluoridation/fact_sheets/bottled_water.htm

SOURCE New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc.

The many brands labeled organic and natural that have been acquired by big corporate “food” companies

Burt’s Bees, Tom’s of Maine, Naked Juice: Your Favorite Brands? Take Another Look — They May Not Be What They Seem

3.17.09 / Andrea Whitfill / Alternet

Confident that you are buying good, socially conscious brands? Find out the real story behind all that marketing money and store visibility.

My first introduction to natural, organic and eco-friendly products stems back to the early ’90s, when I stumbled upon Burt’s Bees lip balm at an independently owned health food store in the heart of Westport, Kansas City, Mo.

Before the eyesore invasion of ’98, when Starbucks frothed its way into the neighborhood, leading to its ultimate demise, Westport was the kind of  ‘hood I still yearn for. It was saturated with historically preserved, hip and funky, mom-and-pop-type establishments, delivering their goods people to people.

I was surprised more recently when I saw Burt’s Bees products everywhere — in grocery stores, drug stores, corner bodegas and big-box stores like Target and Wal-Mart. I thought to myself, fantastic; the marketplace is working, and good for Burt. He has made his mark, and the demand for his products is on the rise.

Needless to say, I was shocked when I recently found out that Burt’s Bees is now owned by Clorox, a massive corporate company that has historically cared very little about the environment, but whose main industry is directly associated with harmful chemicals, some of which require warning labels for legal sale.

Clorox; yes, that’s right — the bleach company with an estimated revenue of $ 4.8 billion that employs nearly 7,600 workers (now bees) and sells products like Liquid-Plumr, Pine-Sol and Armor All, a far cry from the origins of Burt.

I now understood. The reason Burt’s Bees products were everywhere was precisely because they now had a powerful corporation in the driver’s seat, with big marketing budgets and existing distribution systems.

The story of Burt is a charming one gone bad. Burt Shavitz, a beekeeper in Dexter, Maine, lived an extremely humble life selling honey in pickle jars from the back of his pickup truck and resided in the wilderness inside a turkey coop without running water or electricity.

In the summer of 1984, Shavitz was driving down the road and spotted a hitchhiker who needed a lift to the post office. He pulled over and picked up Roxanne Quimby, a 34-year-old woman who eventually became Shavitz’s lover and business partner. Quimby started helping him tend to the beehives, and that eventually led to the all natural-inspired health care products made with Shavitz’s honey and the birth of Burt’s Bees products.

Burt’s story and very powerful narrative gave Burt’s Bees products their legitimacy in my book. Creative entrepreneurs and knowledgeable consumers together working their magic; not the results of a corporate behemoth out to dominate the marketplace.

However, Quimby and Shavitz’s relationship became ’sticky’ in the late ’90s for reasons unclear, yet probably having little to do with honey. Their romantic break up carried over to the split of their business partnership as well. In 1999, Quimby bought out Shavitz’s shares of the company for a small six-figure sum. Quimby then continued, becoming phenomenally successfully and growing sales to $43.5 million by 2002.

In 2003, a private equity firm, AEA investors, purchased 80 percent of Burt’s Bees from Quimby, with her retaining a 20 percent share and a seat on the board. In 2006, John Replogle, the former general manager of Unilever’s skin-care division became CEO and president of Burt’s Bees. The company was sold to Clorox in late October 2007 for $925 million.

Quimby was paid more than $300 million for her stake in Burt’s Bees. At the time of that deal, Shavitz reportedly demanded more money, and Quimby agreed to pay him $4 million. Quimby now refurbishes fancy, swank homes in Florida, travels the world and buys massive chunks of land in her free time. Our bearded man Shavitz, on the other hand, now 73 and unchanged, continues to reside amidst nature in his now-expanded turkey coop, which still remains absent of electricity or running water.

The Burt’s Bees story is disconcerting. I vaguely remembered long ago that one of my favorite ice cream products, Ben & Jerry’s, sold out. Unilever (which also owns Breyers), the giant conglomerate with an estimated market cap of $50 billion and close to 174,000 employees, bought Ben & Jerry’s in 2000 for $326 million.

I began to wonder about the other products I liked, trusted and respected for their independence and their social responsibility. How many were really owned by big corporations, who were going out of their way to hide the link between the big corporate company with the small, socially responsible brand? It didn’t take long for my list of disappointments to grow and grow.

Upon first meeting someone, I can usually tell a quite a lot about them by the contents of their bathroom. The brand I see most often behind medicine cabinets of people I consider to be environmentally conscious is Tom’s of Maine. What Tom’s says to me about the person is that they are willing to spend a little bit of extra cash in order to take proactive steps to help green the Earth.

Well, no more. My bathroom assessments will never be the same. Tom’s of Maine is owned by Colgate-Palmolive, a massive, tanklike company with an estimated 36,000 employees and revenue of approximately $11.4 billion. Its big products include: Ajax, Anbesol and Speedstick.

I am only left to wonder, is Trader Joe’s, popularly known to showcase Tom’s of Maine in its hygiene department, just as much in the dark about all of this as I have been? Or is Joe’s simply another conduit for big corporate products?

As my curiosity grew, I took a little field trip to the grocery store with one of my friends to be a “brand anthropologist.” “Let’s get to the bottom of this,” I said, aiming to check out all of the brands that I and countless other good consumers were buying in our efforts to support grassroots business and not corporate behemoths. Little did I know how deep the hole was going to be, and in some cases, how hard to find out who owns what.

Thinking Dairy

In the dairy section sit many flavors of Stoneyfield Farm Yogurt. I knew its socially conscious CEO, Gary Hirshberg, had created major organic brand recognition to become the No. 1 seller of organic yogurt in the United States, but since then Danone, the French conglomerate (which also owns Brown Cow), acquired a majority holding in Stoneyfield. This is the same Danone that had to recall large quantities of its yogurt in 2007 after it was found to contain unsafe levels of dioxins. (In an interesting twist, the still-active Hirshberg sits on the board of Dannon U.S.A. Unlike most of the early entrepreneurs, who took the dough and left the scene, Hirshberg is still involved. )

Meanwhile, I learned that Horizon Organic milk was bought out by the largest diary company in the U.S., Dean Foods Co., in 2005.

Thirsty? Juices and Water

Next I ventured to the juice section. Drinking Odwalla juices was an expensive habit I had justified for years because of its healthy California brand. The ubiquitous refrigerators in thousands of stores should have given it away that Odwalla wasn’t the small company it once was. It is now owned by Coca-Cola. Almost as soon as Coca-Cola bought the company, back in 2001 for $181 million, it stopped selling the fresh-squeezed OJ that had made Odwalla famous and popular among the healthy set. With its massive distribution system, fresh squeezed wouldn’t last the days and weeks the juices are in transit or on the shelf.

Not to be outdone (although it took it a while), Pepsi bought Naked Juice in 2006 for $450 million, in order to compete with Odwalla. Smuckers, the brand we are told is the “brand we can trust”, grabbed several juice mainstays from the health food store shelves: After the fall — R.W. Knudsen and Santa Cruz Organic.

Turns out that Coca-Cola also owns Glaceau, the company once known for its “fresh new approach to bottled water that is inspired by nature and enhanced by science.” Glaceau is the maker of Vitamin Water, Fruit Water, Smart Water and Vitamin Energy — all bottled waters that are adorably marketed and loaded with sugar. It’s no wonder Coca-Cola was slapped with a lawsuit in 2006 for making deceptive and unsubstantiated health claims in its Vitamin Water marketing strategies; they are selling glorified sugar water.

As for bottled water, egads! That’s a whole article in and of itself. The scourge of bottled water, of course, is an environmental disaster on many levels, as corporations have moved in to take control of water local supplies, while some of the same companies and their mega advertising budgets have created a giant market for bottled water, with enormous waste from plastic bottles and giant carbon foot prints as water is shipped over many thousands of miles from Fiji for example, or Italy, when pretty much no bottled water is needed. Frequently, tap water is of higher quality and more closely tested than bottled water.

And as Michael Blanding notes on AlterNet, “In fact, many times bottled water is tap water. Contrary to the image of water flowing from pristine mountain springs, more than a quarter of bottled water actually comes from municipal water supplies. The industry is dominated by three companies, who together control more than half the market: Coca-Cola, which produces Dasani; Pepsi, which produces Aquafina; and Nestle, which produces several “local” brands, including Poland Spring, Arrowhead, Deer Park, Ozarka and Calistoga. Both Coke and Pepsi exclusively use tap water for their sources, while Nestle uses tap water in some brands.

The Breakfast Nook

Over in the breakfast aisle, my friend was a bit apoplectic when we learned that the “super healthy” Kashi cereals, the favorites of millions of healthy breakfast eaters, was bought in July 2000 for an “undisclosed sum” by Kellogg’s, the 12th-largest company in North American food sales, according to Food Processing. I picked up a box of Kashi’s “Go Lean Crunch” and searched every word; not one mention of the fact that Kellogg’s owns them. That change was rally below the radar. In 2004, Kraft Foods, known for processed cheeses and Kool-Aid, bought the natural cereal maker Back to Nature. Kraft is a subsidiary of Altria, which also owns Philip Morris USA, one of the world’s largest producers of cigarettes.

According to the New York Times, “Many of the alternative cereal brands are owned by larger companies, including Kellogg and General Mills.”

“Cereals, like milk, are one of the primary entrance points for use of organics,” said Lara Christenson of Spins, a market research group for the natural products industry, “which is pretty closely tied to children — health concerns, keeping pesticides, especially antibiotics, out of the diets of children. These large firms wanted to get a foothold in the natural and organic marketplace. Because of the mind-set of consumers, branding of these products has to be very different than traditional cereals.”

These corporate connections are often kept quiet. “There is frequently a backlash when a big cereal package-goods company buys a natural or organic company,” Christenson said. “I don’t want to say it’s manipulative, but consumers are led to believe these brands are pure, natural or organic brands. It’s very purposely done.”

A little more digging shows that General Mills owns Cascadian Farm; Barbara’s Bakery is owned by Weetabix, the leading British cereal company, which is owned by a private investment firm in England; Mother’s makes it clear that it is owned by Quaker Oats (which is owned by PepsiCo); Health Valley and Arrowhead Mills are owned by Hain Celestial Group, a natural food company traded on the NASDAQ, with H.J. Heinz owning 16 percent of that company.

The Sweet Tooth

After the Kashi news, I wondered what was next? I didn’t have to go any further than the organic chocolate aisle of my favorite deli to find Green and Black’s organic chocolate was taken over in 2005 by Schweppes, the 10th-largest company in North American packaged-food sales. And even more surprising to chocolate lovers is that Dagoba Chocolate, which had a little cult chocolate following for a while, is surprise, surprise, owned by Hershey Foods.

There seems to be an apt analogy between the huge growth in the “naturalization” of packaged goods in grocery stores and supermarket aisles and the massive transformation of organic fresh foods. Organic farming began as a grassroots movement to produce food that was healthier and better for the land. But it is now a huge, $20 billion industry, increasingly dominated by large agribusiness companies. Furthermore, when the government certifies food as “organic,” it has nothing to do with the original values of locally grown produce, workers being treated fairly, etc.

So it may cheer some to know that on the East Coast, McDonald’s has served fair-trade-certified Newman’s Own organic coffee in stores, while others may cringe at the words of Lee Scott, former CEO of WalMart, when he said, “We are particularly excited about organic food, the fastest-growing category in all of food.”

“What’s important to keep in mind is that these big corporations are getting into organics not because they have doubts about their prior business practices or doubts about chemical, industrial agriculture,” said Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association. “They’re getting in because they want to make a lot of money — they want to make it fast.” He said the companies couldn’t care less about “family farmers making the transition to organic farms.”

What does this all mean? One conclusion it is easy to come to is that big food companies and the stores and supermarkets that deliver their goods have stretched and abused descriptions of food until they are sometimes almost meaningless, and consumers believe that they are getting more benefits than they actually are. Consumers “walk down the aisle in the grocery stores’ health and beauty area, and they’re confronted with ‘natural’ at every turn,” says Daniel Fabricant, vice president for scientific and regulatory affairs at the Natural Products Association. “We just don’t want to see the term misused any longer.”

On the other hand, Roger Cowe, a financial commentator states: “If you want to change what people consume on a grand scale, you have to penetrate mass markets. And you can’t do that if you’re a small, specialist brand stuck in the organic or whole-food niche, even if that means you are on supermarket shelves. It is a familiar dilemma: stay pure and have a big impact on a small scale, or compromise and have a small impact on a grand scale.”

Some think that socially responsible business sellers don’t lose it all when selling out. Both Craig Sams from Green and Black chocolate and the late Anita Roddick from the Body Shop ( sold to L’Oreal/Nestle — one of the most vilified of multinational companies) have said that they believe that an acquired ethical company can influence its new parent to improve its corporate behavior.

Others are not so positive about this turn of events. Judy Wickes from the Social Venture Network describes corporate takeovers of socially responsible businesses as “a threat to democracy when wealth and power are concentrated into a few hands.” And David Korten, in his book, When Corporations Rule the World, explained how sustainable business “should be human scale — not necessarily tiny firms, but preferably not more than 500 people — always with a bias to smaller is better.”

It is clear that so-called organic brands are a rapidly growing portion of the consumer dollar, and that every major food corporation has invested deeply in buying these already-established brands.

Marketing strategies have been fooling us to trust that the niche brands continue to be small, environmentally conscious businesses that combine ecologically sound practices with a political agenda to put products out on the market under a business model of “the Greater Good.”

In fact, they are frequently cogs in the giant corporate wheel. I like to refer to this “other” business model as “We’ve Been Had.” It is time for we, the consumer, to question how much the ownership and neglectful marketing of these “pseudo” responsible brands warrant crossing them off our shopping list.

And it is time to find products more in tune with our values, which include thinking small. At least until they, too, get bought out by some large conglomerate.

Corpse preservative formaldehyde and carcinogenic dioxane found in over two dozen kids’ shampoos

High chemical levels in some kids’ shampoos

3.14.09 / Amy Graff / San Francisco Chronicle

Remember when the news broke in 2007 that many brand-name lipsticks contained lead? The same Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (CSC) has now gone after children’s bath products. In a report titled, “No More Toxic Tub,” the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit accuses companies such as Johnson & Johnson of putting chemicals linked to cancer in shampoos, soaps, sunscreen, bubble bath, and lotions.

The CSC tested 48 different name-brand kids’ bath products for 1,4-dioxane; 28 of those items were also tested for formaldehyde. According to the CSC, 61 percent of 28 products tested contained both chemicals. Twenty-three out of 28 contained formaldehyde at levels ranging from 54 to 610 parts per million. In the broader spectrum test of 48 products, 35 contained 1,4-dioxane with levels up to 35 parts per million.

The Environmental Protection Agency classifies 1,4-dioxane as a probable carcinogen, and the European Union bans the chemical from personal care products at any level and has recalled products that contain the chemical. Several samples of American Girl shower products were found to contain the highest levels of 1,4-dioxane.

The EPA considers formaldehyde as a probable human carcinogen; the chemical can also trigger adverse skin reactions in children and adults who are sensitive to the chemical. Formaldehyde is banned from personal care products in Japan and Sweden. Baby Magic Baby Lotion, made by Ascendia Brands, contained the highest levels of formaldehyde found in the tests; two samples had formaldehyde at levels that would trigger warning label requirements in Europe (above 500 ppm or .05 percent).

“When products for babies are labeled ‘gentle’ and ‘pure,’ parents expect that they are just that,” says Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.). “To think that cancer-causing chemicals are contaminating baby shampoos and lotions is horrifying. I intend to soon introduce legislation requiring greater oversight of our cosmetics industry. We need to ensure that the chemicals that are used in our everyday products are safe.”

How are the manufacturers reacting to the news?

A spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson, Iris Grossman, told USA Today that the company’s products are safe, meeting or exceeding all regulations. And a spokesman for the Personal Care Products Council, John Bailey, told USA Today that manufacturers have known for years that bubble bath, shampoo and other products contain small amounts of formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, and have already reduced theses levels significantly. He added that preservatives make products safer by preventing the growth of bacteria, fungus and other potentially harmful microbes.

Sheela Sathyanarayana, an environmental health pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor at the University of Washington, countered the big manufacturers and told USA Today that she has seen kids become “extremely sensitized” from formaldehyde exposures. These children develop bigger and bigger reactions with each new exposure. That can make skin sensitive to a variety of substances, beyond just formaldehyde, she says.

So what products should you consider avoiding?

The products that tested positive for 1,4-dioxane include:

• American Girl Hopes and Dreams Glistening Shower and Bath Wash
• American Girl Real Beauty Inside and Out Shower Gel–Apple Blossom (three samples)
• American Girl Real Beauty Inside and Out Shower Gel–Sunny Orange
• Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Creamy Wash (three samples)
• Baby Magic “Soft Baby Scent” Baby Lotion
• Barbie Berry Sweet Bubble Bath
• CVS Baby Shampoo
• CVS Kids Body Wash–Blueberry Blast
• Dora the Explorer Bubble Bath
• Equate Tearless Baby Wash
• Gentle Naturals Eczema Baby Wash
• Grins & Giggles Milk & Honey Baby Wash
• Hot Wheels Berry Blast Bubble Bath
• Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash
• Johnson’s Baby Shampoo
• Johnson’s Moisture Care Baby Wash
• Johnson’s Oatmeal Baby Wash–Vanilla
• L’Oreal Kids Extra Gentle 2-in-1 Fast Dry Shampoo–Burst of Cool Melon
• Mustela Baby Shampoo
• Mustela Dermo-Cleansing Gel for Hair and Body Newborn/Baby
• Mustela Multi-Sensory Bubble Bath
• Night-time Bath Baby Wash
• No-Ad Sun Pals SPF 45 UVA/UVB Sun Protection
• Pampers Kandoo Foaming Handsoap – Magic Melon
• Sesame Street Bubble Bath – Orange Mango Tango
• Soft & Beautiful Just for Me! No-Lye Conditioning Creme Relaxer, Children’s Super
• Suave Kids 2-in-1 Shampoo – Wild Watermelon
• Tinker Bell Scented Bubble Bath

The products that tested positive for formaldehyde include:

• American Girl Hopes and Dreams Shimmer Body Lotion
• American Girl Real Beauty Inside and Out Shower Gel–Apple Blossom (three samples)
• Baby Magic “Soft Baby Scent” Baby Lotion (three samples)
• Barbie Berry Sweet Bubble Bath
• CVS Baby Shampoo
• CVS Kids Body Wash–Blueberry Blast
• Dora the Explorer Bubble Bath
• Equate Tearless Baby Wash
• Grins & Giggles Milk & Honey Baby Wash
• Hot Wheels Berry Blast Bubble Bath
• Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash
• Huggies Soft Skin–Shea Butter
• Johnson’s Baby Shampoo (two samples)
• L’Oreal Kids Extra Gentle 2-in-1 Fast Dry Shampoo–Burst of Cool Melon
• Pampers Kandoo Foaming Handsoap–Magic Melon
• Sesame Street Bubble Bath–Orange Mango Tango
• Tinker Bell Body Lotion
• Tinker Bell Scented Bubble Bath

None of the baby bath products tested in the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ new report list formldehyde and 1,4-dioxane on their labels, since they’re formed as manufacturuing byproducts and aren’t added intentionally. The group says consumers can look out for ingredients that are likely to contain either of the chemicals, though, including: peg-100 stearate, sodium laureth sulfate, polyethylene and ceteareth-20, quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea and sodium hydroxymethoylglycinate.