Consumer Rumors: Time to stop buying tissues

From Greenpeace's website, a new reason why we should all be wiping our noses with reusable hankies and wiping our bums with recycled toilet paper:

Shocking new photos released today reveal the existence of a massive stockpile of old-growth logs that are destined to become disposable products like Kleenex tissue and Cottonelle toilet paper for tissue giant Kimberly-Clark Corporation (K-C). The logs originate from the Ogoki Forest, the single most ecologically valuable area left in Ontario’s southern Boreal Forest and the site of growing controversy.

The stockpile is evidence of Kimberly-Clark’s egregious mismanagement of the forests despite company claims that “much of [the] fiber from the Canadian Boreal forest comes to K-C in the form of wood pulp produced from sawdust and chips – or leftovers – of the lumber production process.”

As these new photos and recent government correspondence reveal, Kimberly-Clark is currently purchasing huge quantities of pulp made primarily from whole, old-growth trees from intact areas of Canada’s Boreal Forest.

And, some astonishing facts from a recent report that Greenpeace put out on Kleenex, "Cut and Run":

• Kimberly-Clark uses hundreds of thousands of tonnes of tree fibre from the Kenogami Forest every year to produce disposable tissue products, including Kleenex.
• Kimberly-Clark directly managed and logged the Kenogami Forest for 71 years, from 1937 to 2004.
• Since Kimberly-Clark started logging there, 71 per cent of the Kenogami Forest has been fragmented. Woodland caribou have been driven out of 67 per cent of the forest, and wolverines have completely disappeared from its boundaries.
• Between 2001 and 2006 alone, 220,500 hectares (544,635 acres) of intact forest was fragmented—an area more than twice the size of Dallas.
• Caribou are predicted to die-off in 95 per cent of the forest within the next 20 years, due to the logging that has already been done. Eighty per cent of the monitored species in the forest are predicted to decline substantially within the next 100 years.
• Many of the remaining intact and old-growth forest areas in Kenogami, including critical threatened species habitat, are slated to be cut under the 2005–2010 and draft 2010–2011 plans.

(Eds note: Congrats to Rachel C. for winning the contest for naming this feature!)

Congress Removes Toxins from Toys, Exxon Proves Itself To Be More Evil Than Originally Thought

In a rare victory in the world of toxic chemicals, Congress decided earlier this week to ban phthalates in children's toys and reduce lead levels. As I reported last week, phthalates are chemicals used to soften plastic that are commonly used in children's toys such as rubber duckies and teething rings. They have been linked to reduced sperm counts, damaged DNA, and undescended testicles in baby boys.

Obviously, taking toxic chemicals out of toys that babies chew on is a good thing. Exxon Mobil, who manufactures DINP, one of the most common phthalates, has a different view on the ban, however: "What's at stake is, in fact, children's safety," said Elissa Sterry, a vice president at Exxon Mobil Chemicals. "If DINP is replaced by alternative products, that's a potential risk to children."

Really, Exxon? Really? You want to play that game? Because that sounds suspiciously like a threat.

And if that wasn't bad enough, Keith Hennessey, director of Bush's Economic Policy Council, wrote to the Senate with a similarly idiotic claim that a ban on toxic chemicals in toys could hurt children. "Banning a product before a conclusive, scientific determination is reached is short-sighted and may result in the introduction of unregulated substitute chemicals that harm children's health," he wrote.

It seems like there is a pretty easy solution to that: Start regulating chemicals that children are exposed to. Oh yeah, and stop being evil.

Source: The Washington Post

Things that make you say "duh"

This just in: voluntary measures for industry to reduce greenhouse gases haven't worked so well.


obvi.