Eco-labeled pesticides! Are your hands on fire yet?

The Greenwash Brigade

As I write, millions of you are using EPA-registered pesticides, likely without knowing it, in a marketing-induced frenzy to rid the world of teensy weensy little microorganisms — things like bacteria, fungi and viruses. The hyped marketing isn’t necessary but disinfecting is, as the real-world disease implications are serious.

This fall, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is convening a work group that will discuss allowing companies to make green claims or use eco-labels for disinfectants and sanitizers. Disinfectants and sanitizers are antimicrobials (pesticides), or agents which prevent/destroy/repel/mitigate these pests and they have to be registered by the EPA and used in very particular ways and at very particular dilutions. And be careful with those alcohol-based sanitizers because they are flammable- women with static electricity from stockings watch out!

You may soon be able to spend hours in the cleaning aisle of the grocery store looking at waves, bunnies, earths, check marks and other eco-claims you may (or may not) understand for all those robust disinfectants and sanitizers.

If the EPA, the progressive ISSA (the worldwide cleaning industry association, which is a strong partner with EPA, Design for Environment Safer Detergent Stewardship Initiative, who was recently awarded Championship status by the agency), and other non-profits and academic organizations do their job right, they could harmonize all third-party criteria for environmentally preferable or “green” disinfectants and sanitizers. And good luck! Otherwise, we could start seeing very confusing or contentious claims on products which, well… are designed to kill.

Some would argue there is no room for such claims but there is indeed a difference between what’s in these products. I would prefer that EPA change its own criteria to prohibit these pesky little problematic elements that pose risks from cancer, reproductive disorders, hormone disruption to asthma, permanent eye damage, dizziness and fatigue.

The End of Cause Marketing on Pesticides!!

For as long as there’s been a pesticide program, EPA has clearly and flatly prohibited the use of eco-labels or third party logos on pesticides. However, in what some consider an outrageous departure from this policy, the agency permitted Clorox to feature The American Red Cross® logo on its bleach in 2007, followed by the Sierra Club label on the new GreenWorks® shortly thereafter.

In a fascinating self-reversal (spurred by hostile adverse comments and Minnesota’s refusal to allow such labeled products in commerce), EPA just withdrew its notice, and obviously permission, about third-party endorsements and cause-marketing label statements. Note this didn’t include ecolabels which may open the door to green marketing for pesticides…organic tobacco, anyone?

At this point, you will no longer see non-profit logos on products but you may see an eco-label on disinfectants and sanitizers in the future. All I can say is read the label carefully — very carefully— and keep this number handy: (800) 858-7378, the National Pesticide Information Center and remember your friends at Tufts University and Beyond Pesticides.

November 5, 2008 by Heidi Siegelbaum
3 comments

tags: Clorox eco-labels EPA

Comments (3)

Michelle Gaither | Respond
November 6, 2008 4:34 PM PT

Wow - thanks Heidi. Consumers almost need a PhD to understand product labels. (Or not, for cleaners - which don't even require ingredients!). Now a plan to have multiple eco-labelling schemes. Whoa. One scheme for consumers to learn/understand seems somewhat manageable, but several different schemes - no way.

As an alternative to an eco-labeling scheme, I would prefer (assuming funding to develop it) a "Cleaning Poducts Database" like the EWG's Cosmetics Database, where consumers can quickly look up products, or ingredients in products to determine their health and enviromental impacts.

Geir | Respond
November 10, 2008 8:47 AM PT

Labeling is a mess - from eggs and organic foods to hormones in milk and MPG ratings for hybrid vehicles. It's becoming more and more difficult for consumers to understand these labels as our appetite for reporting goes up (lack of clarity or standardization, industry meddling or pandering, explosion in the types of metrics we get reporting for). Clearly there's no one-size fits all, but are there no industry and department-crossing entities who can start sorting this stuff out? USFDA, EPA seem the two largest players. Are there others with large impact on consumer goods reporting?

Roger McFadden | Respond
November 10, 2008 9:04 AM PT

Just because a toxic substance is put into a bottle that is made from recycled plastic and meets a set of irrelevant or poorly defined green criteria doesn't make it less toxic. I trust that EPA will do the right thing and make certain that if they do accept “green” claims on disinfectants that those claims are clearly defined and based on relevant criteria and anchored in sound science.

Green Washing is dangerous. No organization is exempt from committing it. We want to believe that only "bad" organizations commit green washing. There is no doubt that they can and do. But organizations with good intentions can commit green washing as well. For instance, if in our desire to do good we adopt and support green eco-labeling that is not based on sound science and green chemistry principles then are we not guilty of enabling green washing?

There is no doubt that we consumers need help when it comes to identifying products that are better for human and environmental health. We are continuously bombarded with marketing and advertising messages prepared to convince us that we should buy their product because it has some nebulous or poorly defined "green" benefit.

I applaud ISSA for its commitment to encourage their members to make, distribute and use greener alternatives. However, there are still many cleaning product manufacturers that formulate and distribute cleaning products that contain neurotoxins, endocrine disrupters, severe irritants, corrosives and many other substances that are harmful to human and environmental health. In fact, many of the large companies that are offering a small assortment of green products are continuing to sell huge amounts of cleaning products that still contain the very ingredients they say they eliminated when they formulated their green products. Is that commitment?

If a company tells us in their marketing materials and sales literature that they have eliminated certain hazardous substances from cleaning or disinfecting products because they are bad for human and/or environmental health to encourage us to buy those products. And at the same time they are widely using those same hazardous substances in their conventional “non-green” cleaning and disinfecting products that make up 95% of their total sales volume; then isn’t that a form of green washing?

If we want to reduce our toxic footprint then we need to support green chemistry principles and stop enabling makers of toxic products.

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Our hand-picked environmental professionals, each part of the Public Insight Network, are on the hunt for "greenwash" as they examine eco-friendly claims by companies, governments and other groups. They ask tough questions about the mainstreaming of green, from the perspectives of people in the trenches who are focused on these issues 24/7.

Jim Nicolow is a nationally recognized expert on sustainable design and leads the sustainability initiative for Lord, Aeck & Sargent, overseeing the incorporation of sustainable design strategies and features into the firm’s design projects. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional with extensive knowledge of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system.

Janne K. Flisrand has worked as an affordable housing and urban planning research consultant for five years, primarily supporting local non-profits. Her focus is on transit, transit-oriented design, affordable housing, and sustainability. Currently, she’s the program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities, a program promoting affordable, healthy, sustainably built housing throughout Minnesota.

Dennis Markatos-Soriano recently completed a Master's in Public Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is now launching Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) to help individuals and institutions move from dependence on oil and gas to an efficient use of renewables. Previously, he co-founded SURGE (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment), which aims to bring young progressives together across issues of environmental and social justice throughout North Carolina and beyond. In the summer of 2006, he helped to start a small green company, Greenway Pedicabs, to provide a greenhouse gas-free transportation option for people in the Triangle of North Carolina.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal with Calyx Sustainable Tourism and works primarily on advancing sustainable tourism practices. She also specializes in science translation, cross-border indicators with Canada, cross-disciplinary planning and environmental technical assistance to businesses. Previously, she was in-house legal counsel for EPA for industrial chemicals and biotechnology and the senior performance measure analyst with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She is on the technical advisory committee of the Seattle Culinary Academy and a long standing member of the Chefs Collaborative.

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