Greenwashing: Busting "eco" labels (CBC Marketplace)

this week on a brand-new marketplace non-toxic biodegradable natural we reveal the spin on green products this particular product gets my blood boiling a top 10 countdown of lousy labels in your home so for companies I think consumers aren't looking too deeply we can bamboozle them what companies the worst that claims to help wildlife but it has an ingredient in it that is toxic to wildlife you got it we're taking a tour of big-box stores looking for products for your home with big environmental claims we want to test ok look new and improved now I am agreeable let's toss it in it's hard to miss the green messages check the screen boatloads non-toxic but is it the real deal or greenwashing marketing that makes us think of products better for the environment safe to use the green spin doesn't fool Adria vassal this self-described eco holic has filled books warning us about all kinds of green washing there's so much green wash on shelves today it's just overwhelming like a tsunami of green wash really in Vancouver very good angela van tine got interested in making green choices after her son Aidan was born oh but she doesn't always find it easy there's so many things out there say that they're green and or dining so it really is difficult to navigate through all that sorting through green washing isn't child's play cuz sure enough we find suspects for just about every room of the house our basket loaded with green labels and we go it's time to survey our stash starting with number 10 on our list raid earth blends multi bug killer you got it even bug sprays have green marketing the label says the insecticide comes from the chrysanthemum flower sounds almost wholesome yeah but lots of things in nature are actually dangerous and toxic not all natural things are good for you and this is a perfect example turns out the chemical that comes from the chrysanthemum flower has risks just check out the long list of precautions cover fishbowls food utensils remove pets keep away from skin and clothes get an awfully long warning for a green product right they even say here do not inhale but it's a mist it's a mess how do you not inhaling it like a gray trigger yeah the label claimed you can use it on bedbugs but get this in many parts of Canada you can't use it outside on your lawn because of pesticide bans that's right bend from your backyard but okay for your bent we call SC Johnson I am calling about your raid earth blends how is this a green product they tell us SC Johnson is committed to using sustainable ingredients in our products and our products are safe and effective when used as directed clearly this product bugs you let's give it a lousy label back at Angela's house she's invited over some friends who care about buying green - and they trust what they see on the label you're trying to you know look at all these products very quickly and get some sort of idea in terms of what's going to be safe so we show them number nine on our lousy labels list sunlight green clean laundry soap does anybody find this the label says it includes plant based cleaning ingredients the word include sets off warning bells for our expert they use some plant based ingredients but not all these days most laundry soaps are actually synthetic detergents made from petroleum-based ingredients not plants so we send this one off for testing to see just how green that clean is because petrochemicals come with a major environmental footprint from extraction refining processing all the way to its end used in the environment so yeah you know most green products would want to be petrochemical free we get our test results back and what do we find turns out once you take out the water 38 percent of what's left petrochemicals would you get that looking at this bottle that it actually has 38% petrica I would not have bought it if I knew that it had 3% petrochemicals key word it a plant based cleaning ingredient I think what they're going for is that you read the plant base part and forget a book in their blood yeah we call Sun Products pick up a Greek but really clean they tell us with more than 60% plant derived content we have made significant positive strides to reduce the environmental impact of our product but we say so this is a laundry detergent that truly is green washing yes but um pump from green washing in the laundry room to the bedroom for number eight on our lousy labels countdown the Obus forme ecologic contoured pillow most memory foam is made out of polyurethane a synthetic material that can give off nasty chemicals that can irritate your lungs pollute the air but this label says this pillow contains natural ingredients including castor oil well you know if they were using a lot of castor oil instead of petroleum based polyurethane then that would be an ecological leg up except that nowhere on this box do they actually say anything about how much castor oil is in this product so we call them up and ask how much of the petroleum based polyurethane has been replaced by castor oil and guess how much just 8% you know what that's just like enough we call HoMedics the company that makes Obus forme I'm calling about your ecologic oversized contoured pillow they tell us the ecologic contoured pillow is produced using processes that reduce the use of chemicals that are harmful to the environment but we say time to put these green claims to bed let's give it a lousy label let's check out number seven on our lousy labels list simple green all-purpose cleaner sure looks Green says non-toxic but not so fast according to our eco expert the interesting thing about this product is that while they claim to be non-toxic environment Canada actually considers their ingredient to be an official toxic health hazard that ingredient of concern to boot oxy authen all a chemical that can damage red blood cells but it says it's non-toxic right on the front oh well because no one's actually policing this term they can do whatever they want with that label hard to believe but non-toxic doesn't necessarily mean there is no toxic ingredient and try to find it listed on the back good luck companies don't have to have an ingredient list on cleaning products no one is forcing them to list their ingredients and to come clean about what's actually in the products that we spray all over our homes so we call simple green I'm wondering why you're calling it non-toxic when it has an ingredient Environment Canada says is toxic they tell us we have had independent laboratories conduct a host of testing on our product as a whole to confirm that the complete formula is non-toxic but we say so simple green simply green wash simply lousy find out who makes the list for refusing to reveal their ingredients in other words what they're saying is we don't have to tell you what's in here unless you get a letter from your doctor when we come back we're doing some sleuthing non-toxic taking a closer look at products for your home that claim they're good for the environment safer to use it's a top ten lousy labels countdown next room the bathroom that's where we spot number six on our list the Eco Collection bath mitt made from bamboo which our eco expert Adria vassal says is not as green as it sounds you know the thing with bamboo is that it's sort of like the baloney of the fabric world it is technically from natural materials you know bamboo can be grown quite sustainably if done right but it takes a heck of a lot of funky chemical processing to take a bamboo stalk and turn it into something soft like this we call Upper Canada Soap Company and they tell us our packaging includes necessary product information for our customers to make an informed decision but we say it's time to wash those green claims down the drain to get the goods on green we visit a Vancouver marketing insider hey Marc America Marc's toy bears helped companies with their spin for more than 20 years but now he's helping them go green why are companies doing this trying to get away with claim so hoping people won't realize that they're not actually as green as they seem companies believe that there's a shortcut they're not evolving as quickly as consumers so they still believe consumers can be duped checkout number five on our list vim power Pro Naturals bathroom cleaner it says ninety-eight percent natural what does that mean uh well pretty much next to nothing because the word natural is totally unregulated and I would bet money on the fact that this product does not come straight from nature it is a betting game because remember companies don't have to list their ingredients on cleaning products so we call up the company Unilever I'm just wondering what are the ingredients that make it natural labour does not disclose specified ingredients information however if it's a medical necessity for this information Unilever would be more than happy to work with your physician we run that by our green shoppers in other words what they're saying is we don't have to tell you what's in here unless you do a letter from your doctor if I make the choice to buy it I have the right to know what's in it we think so too so we send off vim for testing to see how much of it actually comes from nature meantime marketing insider mark Stover says it doesn't work anymore when companies keep secrets from customers I believe it's old-school thinking transparency is the new status quo so hiding things and making false claims is going to blow up ten times faster in their face and it Houston the test results are in like most cleaning products it's mostly water but the rest one-quarter petroleum based chemicals Unilever tells us our naturally derived claim is based on all of the ingredients in the product including water so the water bumps it up to ninety eight percent natural hmm we say that's a lousy label and green washing isn't just inside your house it's outside too where we find number four on our list organic melt ice remover the labels full of claims 100% natural ingredients environmentally safe an agricultural based product with sugar beets what's the problem with conventional I smell well basically your regular ice melt is just plain old rock salt and you know it's good at melting ice but actually quite damaging to aquatic life downstream this ingredient list shows sugar beets first then NaCl or salt but when we check the company tells us the amount of sugar beets in here only 3% the rest that plain old rock salt I have a heavy heart when we dig into this information because I've actually used this product in the past you were duped into thinking this was mostly beet I knew that there was salt in there but it's supposed to be cut with sugar beets and so when you look at the beets in here it actually puts beet in first place turns out the main ingredient doesn't have to be first on the list if it's only 3% it really should be in the reverse order in the ingredient list and they are definitely stretching the truth the company eco solutions tells us that using sugar beets makes it work better so you need less of it and there's less overall salt going into the environment might be true but still misleading and allow the label sadly so where do we find the top 3 on our lousy labels hit list in the kitchen starting with tea fouls natura frying pan our expert gives it a nod for using 100% recycled aluminum better than using you know hundred percent virgin aluminum absolutely but the kudos stopped there the label says no pfoa a synthetic chemical used to make nonstick coatings there's huge concern around PFOA it likely causes cancer and it's so widespread in the environment most of us have it in our blood streams here's the thing there's never been PFOA on t-fal frying pans but they've always used it at the factory to manufacture the slippery coating you know when I first saw this pan I thought Oh have they developed a new kind of nonstick coating that is now pfoa-free in the manufacturing process but when we call the company to ask if they still use PFOA to make the pans they tell us yes they do in other words nothing's changed and so if you go to this pen and think oh wow new coating on the market this is a great alternative you're wrong the company tells us independent analysis has confirmed that no pfoa is present in any of tea fowls nonstick cookware products but we say not on the pan but still in the factory that's a lousy label do you think it deserves a lousy label sadly yes so what products top our lousy labels list we pay a visit to the makers of number-one when we come back we're counting down lousy labels on supposedly green products for your home we've gone shopping done the testing and we're about to reveal the worst offender but first number two on our top-10 hit list Jay cloths they've been around for a long time but now the makers say they're biodegradable with an official-looking seal to back that up Angela figures that means it's okay to throw in a green bin for composting it is important because you can actually compost it and it doesn't go on the landfill for years that's what the Consumer Hotline tells us too hi I'm calling about your jay clause it says they're now biodegradable does that mean I can throw these in my green bin hmmm not according to our enviro expert Adria Vasil can I toss this in my green bin no why not that's four things that are biodegradable well no that's not true your green bin is for things that are certified compostable and most municipalities that do green binning would tell you hey hey please do not put this in there we're just going to skim it out anyway if you put it in there and they'll end up in landfill listen nothing biodegrades in landfill you'll find four year old hot dogs in landfills oh when that biodegradable seal completely made-up but it sure fooled these friends looks official this yeah I'd like some more than I say I think there's a cycling circle so you would think this has the seal of someone's approval it is yeah degradable yeah former add guy mark Stover says using a made-up seal one of the oldest tricks in the book consumers have a limited bandwidth they can only think of so many things they don't have time to deeply research a product they want somebody do to the homework so they can just grab it so for companies they think consumers aren't looking too deeply we can bamboozle them associated brands the company that makes Jay cloths tells us Jay cloth is composed of cellulose fibres which are 100% derived from wood pulp these fibers are organic in nature and biodegradable but if it doesn't belong in the green bin and it doesn't biodegrade in the landfill our expert says the word biodegradable innocence instance is pretty damn useless so we say that's a lousy label which brings us to the worst of them all the product that tops are lousy labels list cuz it's not just green washing it's causing harm to the very thing it's claiming to help dawn antibacterial dish soap the label says dawn helps save wildlife today giggle wash dawn does donate dish soap to clean up animals after an oil spill and gives money to animal rescue groups but adrià vassal says don't be fooled this particular product gets my blood boiling why because they are making a big deal about how dawn helps save wildlife and then when you flip the product over you actually see that it contains an ingredient called triclosan and triclosan is an ingredient Environment Canada has just recently declared officially toxic to aquatic life that claims to help wildlife but it has an ingredient in it that is toxic to wildlife you got it yep triclosan is what makes the soap antibacterial it's also an ingredient many environmental groups say should be banned and we are putting this down the drain into rivers and lakes where it ends up building up in their systems not a good thing we don't need more of this in our kwatak life we don't need more visiting our rivers and streams and it's certainly not saving while dawn is made by Procter and Gamble and last year they sold a billion dollars worth of it we want to ask them about this soaps green wash but they say no to an interview seems the biggest consumer packaged goods company in the world is camera shy instead they tell us all of our Dawn dishwashing products and ingredients are in compliance with current legal and regulatory requirements in Canada but we say it's one lousy label and deliver this one in person Baker okay for these shoppers trying to make environmentally-friendly choices all this greenwashing doesn't go over well doesn't seem fair just seems like you're being played by have these big companies and it's just definitely you know it makes me hungry in order to make that informed choice maybe we're gonna have to demand information from these people that are selling us potentially dangerous products a message to companies selling green products that hope one day to find a home in your home get tips on avoiding greenwash in your home on our website

Channel: CBC News

Views: 429,360

Rating: 4.6291828 out of 5

Keywords: CBC News, CBCNews, CBC broadcasting media, public broadcasting news, Canadian News, Canadian Broadcasting Corportation (TV network), CBC News Network, environment, environmentally friendly, eco-friendly, greenwashing

Id: nys5TaGGkRk

Length: 21min 23sec (1283 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2015