| Dear
EarthTalk: I heard that Walmart is having a
bigger positive impact on the environment than any other
U.S. institution. What are they doing along these lines?
-- R. Schlansker, Beaverton, OR
| |
Many
environmental and community advocates consider Walmart’s
pro-green efforts as too little too late or insignificant
in relation to the company's larger social impact.
© Colin, courtesy Flickr |
Walmart
has indeed been working to clean up its image in recent
years, and many environmentalists are pleased with the company’s
commitment to reduce its massive carbon footprint. Many,
however, view the company’s initiatives with skepticism,
especially considering its overall impact on communities.
What’s
noteworthy on the environmental front is not so much the
significant energy and emissions the company is reducing
at its stores and distribution centers and in its vehicles,
but the ripple effect that its new carbon-cutting policies
are having on the entire supply chain. This March, Walmart
CEO Mike Duke announced a new goal of eliminating 20 million
metric tons of greenhouse gases from its global supply chain—the
equivalent of taking more than 3.8 million cars off the
road for a year—by the end of 2015.
“To
find these reductions, Walmart will be asking its estimated
100,000 suppliers to cut the amount of carbon they emit
when they produce, package and ship their products,”
reports Dominique Browning of Environmental Defense Fund,
which has been a key advisor to Walmart on green issues.
Browning cites Walmart’s elimination of large laundry
detergent bottles—since so much of them are water
and energy-intensive to ship—in favor of concentrates
sold in smaller bottles. As a result, concentrated laundry
detergent is now the top seller at not only Walmart but
at other stores, too. Walmart also convinced CD, DVD and
video game makers to make their cases lighter to reduce
transport carbon emissions, and they helped energy efficient
compact fluorescent light bulb sales by spurring makers
to refine their designs.
Many
environmental and community advocates, however, consider
Walmart’s pro-green efforts as too little too late
or insignificant in relation to the company’s larger
impact. Walmart Watch, a nonprofit group run by the Center
for Community and Corporate Ethics, says the company has
paid numerous fines over the last decade for violating air
and water pollution rules, and that’s its green initiatives
will easily be erased by its sheer growth which will mean
more energy usage, more delivery truck trips and even more
miles driven by consumers to get to Walmart stores that
displaced smaller, more local ones.
Wake-Up
Walmart, a project of the United Food and Commercial Workers
International Union, says the company—which employs
two million people in its 7,000+ stores—is also no
friend to employees. Its average wage, says the group, is
six percent below the Federal poverty level for a family
of four and its move into urban areas, aside from destroying
small businesses, often depresses other nearby wages where
similar jobs otherwise pay as much as 18 percent more than
Walmart. Further, says Wake-Up Walmart, the company pays
$5,000 less yearly to full-time female employees than male
ones, and its health plan is so poor that it forces many
employees to rely on publicly assisted healthcare, at taxpayer
expense.
Walmart
Watch says the company has also been fiercely anti-union:
“Labor law violations range from illegally firing
workers who attempt to organize…to unlawful surveillance,
threats and intimidation of associates who dare to speak
out.” Meanwhile, Walmart made a $14.3 billion profit
in 2009, and its CEO earned $12.2 million in 2008, 587 times
the annual income of an average full-time Walmart associate.
CONTACTS:
Walmart;
Environmental
Defense Fund; Walmart
Watch; Wake-Up
Walmart.
Dear
EarthTalk: At a meeting of a local art association,
an artist who paints in acrylics said that doing so is more
eco-friendly than painting in oils. I somehow doubt it.
Aren’t acrylics petroleum based? And aren‘t
some oil paints made from natural materials?
-- Linda Reddington, via e-mail
| |
There
are environmental and health issues with both oil
and acrylic art paints. Some greener and healthier
options are now available, though, such as water-mixable
oil paints that clean up with water instead of chemicals,
and GLOB paints, made from food-grade botanical extracts,
colored by real fruits, vegetables, flowers and spices,
and free of chemicals, parabens, petroleum and synthetic
preservatives.
© Katy McDonnell, Thinkstock |
Of course, there
are no easy answers. There are environmental and health
issues with both oil and acrylic art paints. The big downside
of oil paints is the paint thinner required to clean them
up. While some of the pigments in oil paint might be toxic
or poisonous depending on color—reds, yellows, some
blues and many whites are produced using potentially toxic
heavy metals—the paint itself is typically made of
food-grade linseed oil, which could hardly be more harmless
to the environment (where it came from, after all). But
oil paint is notoriously hard to clean up; getting those
brushes, palettes and work areas clean requires the use
of paint thinners, such as turpentine or mineral spirits,
that are not only potentially toxic if used improperly but
give off noxious odors and are highly flammable.
As for acrylic
paints, they are water-based so clean-up is a breeze: Just
wash it down the drain with some warm water, no paint thinner
required. But acrylic paint is a petroleum-derived polymer,
i.e. plastic. While cleaning it up might be easier than
cleaning up oil paints, do we really want to be rinsing
plastic down our drains? How good could this be for surrounding
ecosystems? The other negative, of course, is that just
buying them contributes to our reliance on petroleum.
So what‘s
a green painter to do? One option is to go for so-called
water mixable oil paints that, according to manufacturers
like Grumbacher, appear and behave in the same manner as
traditional oil paints in every aspect except when it comes
to clean-up—like acrylics, they thin and clean up
with water instead of noxious chemicals. Water mixable oils
are ideal for those sensitive to chemical fumes. Art supply
chain Utrecht sells a wide variety of water mixable oil
paints online and at its retail locations across the U.S.
If you must use
traditional oil paints—many professional artists just
prefer them for their thickness, color brilliance and other
qualities—you can go with a brand that pays attention
to the environmental impact of its products and operations.
Oregon-based Gamblin Artists Colors Company uses only high-quality
raw materials in its paints, avoiding preservatives that
degrade the quality and release chemicals. Gamsol, the company’s
paint thinner, uses mineral spirits that evaporate much
more slowly than turpentine, which has a reputation for
irritating breathing passages and inducing nausea. Every
spring the company cleans its machinery, and instead of
throwing the filter dust out, it recycles it and gives away
tubes of the resulting gray paint free to artists through
retail locations, and hosts a contest for art created with
the unique color.
Another way to
go would be truly all-natural. Berkeley, California-based
GLOB crafts its paints from food-grade botanical extracts,
so it‘s even safe for kids aged three and older. Colored
by real fruits, vegetables, flowers and spices, GLOB paints
are all-natural, non-toxic, and free of chemicals, parabens,
petroleum and synthetic preservatives. The palette is limited
to just six colors, but creative artists should be able
to mix to their heart‘s content. The paints can be
mail ordered, and they come in a dry powdered format, which
saves weight, money and energy when shipped—users
add water and start painting.
CONTACTS:
Grumbacher;
Utrecht;
Gamblin
Artists Colors Company; GLOB. |
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SYNDICATED COLUMN ONLY ON AMERICAJR.COM
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