The price of everything from
shampoo to bottled iced tea could be
on the rise in the next few years –
unless companies find ways to produce
and distribute products more efficiently.
But if they do, it could be good news for
American workers. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
The price of everything from
shampoo to bottled iced tea could be
on the rise in the next few years –
unless companies find ways to produce
and distribute products more efficiently.
But if they do, it could be good news for
American workers. Julie Grant reports:
Today, when a company makes, say a bottle of shampoo,
the plastic bottle is often made in China and shipped to the
U.S.
Daniel Mahler is with the global consulting firm AT Kearney.
His company finds the cost of labor in China is going up –
and cost of transporting bottles around the world is on the
rise.
Mahler says that means it’s smarter to start making the
bottles here in the U.S.
“Because the transportation costs will be much lower if I
have a supplier next door that ships to me my plastic or the
caps for my bottles.”
Mahler’s study says companies that don’t change could see
earnings drop by 30% in the next five years – and that would
mean higher prices for products.
In China, infant formulas contaminated with melamine killed four babies and made
thousands sick. (Photo courtesy of the CDC)
Earlier this year, when Chinese
infant formulas were found to be contaminated,
the US Food and Drug Administration banned
imports. The FDA said no amount of
industrial chemicals should be allowed in
infant formula. Now that the FDA has
found the same chemicals in US-made infant
formulas, the government says a little is
safe. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Earlier this year, when Chinese
infant formulas were found to be contaminated,
the US Food and Drug Administration banned
imports. The FDA said no amount of
industrial chemicals should be allowed in
infant formula. Now that the FDA has
found the same chemicals in US-made infant
formulas, the government says a little is
safe. Lester Graham reports:
In China, infant formulas contaminated with melamine killed four babies and made
thousands sick. The FDA said no amount was acceptable.
Then the FDA started secretly testing infant formulas made in the U.S. It found
melamine or a related chemical, cyanuric acid, in Nestle’s Good Start formula and
Mead Johnson’s Enfamil. ‘
Suddenly, the FDA decided a trace amount, one part per million is safe.
Lisa Madigan is the Attorney General for the State of Illinois. She says the FDA
should stop sales of those formulas.
“We have directly asked them to make sure these formulas are recalled as well as to
make sure that people across the country are aware of the problem.”
The FDA stresses levels of the chemicals in the U.S. infant formulas are more than
10,000 times lower than the levels reported in the Chinese formulas.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
BPA is found in things such as plastic water bottles, canned goods, and baby bottles
(Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)
Canada has become the first country to
begin the process of banning plastic baby bottles
containing the chemical Bisphenol-A. Environmental
activists are praising the move, but want Ottawa
to go further. Dan Karpenchuk reports:
Transcript
Canada has become the first country to
begin the process of banning plastic baby bottles
containing the chemical Bisphenol-A. Environmental
activists are praising the move, but want Ottawa
to go further. Dan Karpenchuk reports:
Bisphenol-A, or BPA, is just about everywhere – one of most commonly manufactured
chemicals in the world. It’s main use is to make plastics hard and shatterproof.
It’s found in consumer products such as plastic baby bottles, water bottles, C-D cases,
eyeglasses and the lining of tin cans.
Rick Smith is with the group, Environmental Defense. Smith says particularly at risk are
infants.
“So there’s very good evidence that kids that are exposed to it earlier on in life are
more prone to breast cancer, prostate cancer later on in life.”
Research has also linked BPA to heart disease, diabetes, and liver problems. Smith says
BPA is in virtually every tin can in people’s cupboards, and evidence has shown that it
can leach into the food or beverage, even at room temperature.
Health Canada says the levels of BPA most adults are exposed to are not harmful.
But Smith and other environmentalists are calling for a complete ban in consumer
products.
Author Elizabeth Royte encourages people to buy reusable water bottles instead of disposable. Just make sure your water bottle doesn't have BPA in it like this one! (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
We buy a lot of bottled water.
Globally, sales are more than 60-billion
dollars a year. Elizabeth Royte just wrote
a new book about the whole bottled water
phenomenon. It’s called ‘Bottlemania’.
The Environment Report’s Lester Graham
asked her how we got to where we’re carrying
a plastic bottle of water with us at all times:
Transcript
We buy a lot of bottled water.
Globally, sales are more than 60-billion
dollars a year. Elizabeth Royte just wrote
a new book about the whole bottled water
phenomenon. It’s called ‘Bottlemania’.
The Environment Report’s Lester Graham
asked her how we got to where we’re carrying
a plastic bottle of water with us at all times:
Elizabeth Royte: “Because of hundreds of millions of dollars spent on advertising telling us that
bottled water is pure and natural, will make us look better, and make us more attractive to the
opposite sex. If you’re smart, you’ll drink bottled water.”
Lester Graham: (laughs) “Okay, so at $1.39 a pint, it sounds like I’m paying for a lot of advertising
and not much water.”
Royte: (laughs) “Yeah. You’re paying for advertising, you’re paying for lawyers, you’re paying for
PR flacks, you’re paying for the right to extract water from communities where many people might
not. So there’s a lot of legal battles going on over it, so some of your money may be going toward
that. You’ll be doing your pocketbook and the environment a big favor by just getting a good
refillable, reusable, washable bottle and filling it up with good old tap water.”
Graham: “A lot of bottled water comes from public water supplies. Dasani and Aquafina, from
Coke and Pepsi, come from public water supplies, and, as you say in ‘Bottlemania’, ‘they filter the
bejesus out of it’. Other water comes from natural springs, or glaciers, or pure mountain rivers –
doesn’t that make it better?”
Royte: “Well, you’ve hit on it, because that’s what they’re trading on and sometimes they charge a
bit more from that. They do say it is a natural product – it’s coming from the Earth. Those other
brands, Aquafina and Dasani, do start from municipal water supplies, they’re very filtered. And if
you don’t want to have minerals in your water, then you should aim for one of those. Or, get a
reverse-osmosis filter and install it under your sink and you’ll get the same thing, more or less.”
Graham: “Okay, so I’ve been buying bottled water by the case, let’s say. You want me to stop
buying bottled water because there’s fuel used in it, there’s petroleum used in the plastic, I’m
paying more than I should have to for water. What should I do?”
Royte: “You shouldn’t buy bottled water for bad reasons. You should educate yourself. You
should find out what’s going on upstream, what’s going on in your watershed, what sort of industry,
agriculture, development. Read your consumer confidence report. Know the utility is found in the
water, then go a step further, and order up some of your own tests so you can find out what’s in the
pipes in your house. Because the utility is responsible for the quality of the water only until it gets
to your service lines.”
Graham: “But that’s a lot of work. It’s easier to buy a bottle of water.”
Royte: (laughs) “It’s easier in the short run, but it’s going to hurt you financially in the long run, and
its contributing to climate change. That’s the carbon footprint of the transportation, the making the
bottles, the landfills, the incinerator, the litter – it goes on and on and on. It is a little bit of money
up front. But it’s only up front. You’ll get that reusable bottle, you might have to get a filter, but
again, you’re going to save money buying this filter and maintaining it over relying only on bottled
water.”
Graham: “So, let’s say you go to lunch or go to meet someone for coffee and your friend comes in
with a plastic bottle of water they bought at a local store. Do you resist the urge to say, ‘hey, do
you know?’ or do you go ahead and let them have it. Let me hear your elevator speech to your
friend.”
Royte: (laughs) “I don’t have friends like that.” (laughs) “All my friends have refillable, reusable
bottles.” (laughs) “No, yeah, I sometimes do resist the urge. I do see people in their cars with
these bottles and I don’t say anything because I want to keep them as friends. But I try to model
good behavior, and they see me filling up my bottle, and I hope some of that rubs off on them.”
Elizabeth Royte is the
author of ‘Bottlemania: How Water Went On Sale
And Why We Bought It’. She spoke with Lester Graham.
Two government agencies are issuing very different
messages about the safety of a plastic used to package food.
Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Two government agencies are issuing very different messages about the safety of a plastic used to package food. Lester Graham reports:
The Food and Drug Administration recently declared there’s “an adequate margin of safety” for a plastic called bisphenol A or BPA. But right after that the National Toxicology Program found BPA is of “some concern.”
Sarah Burkhalter is with the online environmental news service Grist-dot-org. She has found there are 115 studies on BPA… and the FDA is chiefly relying on plastic industry studies.
“104 of those were done by government scientists and university labs. 90 percent of them found BPA could harm human health. All eleven of the industry studies found that BPA was safe. So it makes sense that relying on those industry-funded studies that the FDA would find it to be safe.”
BPA is used in all sorts of things, including the linings of cans of food and baby bottles.
Lake Superior's South Shore, Wisconsin
(Photo by Dave Hansen, courtesy of the EPA)
There’s a new agreement that says the
Great Lakes water has to stay in the Great Lakes.
It’s been approved now by all eight of the states
and the two Canadian provinces that border the
Lakes. Rick Pluta reports the agreement is now
on its way to Congress:
Transcript
There’s a new agreement that says the
Great Lakes water has to stay in the Great Lakes.
It’s been approved now by all eight of the states
and the two Canadian provinces that border the
Lakes. Rick Pluta reports the agreement is now
on its way to Congress:
The Great Lakes region was worried that drier parts of the country and the world might
be eyeing the largest supply of freshwater on Earth.
Ten years ago, a Canadian company got permission from Ontario to send millions of
gallons of water to Asia via tanker ships. Fierce opposition from around the Great Lakes
region put an end to that project. But regions neighboring the Great Lakes basin still see
them as a possible cure for their water shortages.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm says the Great Lakes compact offers an answer to
anyone outside the region who wants to get their hands on that water.
“Can’t touch this. (laughs) That’s what we say. They need to look at their own way of
preserving and managing their resources.”
When Granholm signed new laws in a ceremony here on the Lake Michigan shoreline,
Michigan became the last of the eight Great Lakes states to formally join the compact.
The compact was put together by leaders of the US states and two Canadian provinces
that border the lakes. Granholm says, once it’s adopted by Congress and signed by the
president, it will give the Great Lakes states new authority to protect their water.
“This allows me as governor to veto any large diversion of water, so we can put a stop to
it ourselves. It really allows us the autonomy of protecting these Great Lakes overall.”
It took 10 years for the Great Lakes states to get the compact through their legislatures
and signed by their governors. Members of Congress from the region are hoping it won’t
take quite so long to get it to the president’s desk.
Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel is expected to lead the effort to get the compact
through the US House. He says congressional hearings will begin this year and the
compact should be approved in time for it to be sent to the new president in early 2009.
Emanuel says he’s not expecting any problems.
“Because people understand and know, this is our Yellowstone Park, this is our Grand
Canyon. This is a national treasure. There’s been a lot of work and years of effort to get
this done. The good news is a lot of the chairmen of the committees that are relevant, come
from the Midwest, know how important the Great Lakes are and will act with due speed
in getting it done.”
Both the Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic candidate
Barak Obama have said they would sign the compact.
Environmental groups are among those backing the deal. But many of them say it
still comes up short because it does not stop bottled water from leaving the Great Lakes
region.
Cyndi Roper is with Clean Water Action.
“Water is water. You can’t fill a tanker with water and take it out of the Great Lakes, but
you can fill that same tanker with bottles of water and ship them to other parts of the
country and other parts of the world, and we believe as we move forward, that’s a very
dangerous precedent to set.”
She says that’s because many millions of gallons can still trickle out of the lakes – even if
it’s 12 ounces at a time.
Environmental activists are calling for
food packagers to stop using a toxic plastic to
line food and beverage cans. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Environmental activists are calling for
food packagers to stop using a toxic plastic to
line food and beverage cans. Lester Graham reports:
The thin plastic lining used in many canned foods and soft drinks contains a chemical
called bisphenol-A.
Canada is taking steps to restrict the use of the plastic in baby
bottles and formula can linings. In the U.S., some retailers have removed some
products using plastic with bisphenol-A.
Aaron Freeman is with the Environmental Defense Fund in Canada. He says this
chemical has been linked to too many health problems to ignore.
“Things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, early puberty in girls, attention deficit
disorder, and so on – those are all health effects we’re seeing sharp rises on.”
Freeman concedes cans lined with plastic containing bisphenol-A have not been proven
to cause the diseases. But he says since the canning industry has other plastics it can
use, it’s just a sensible precaution to stop using plastic with bisphenol-A.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Clear, colored plastic bottles - such as this one - are made of plastic number 7, which contains BPA (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Recently there’s been a big concern about
bisphenol-A, or BPA, in some plastics.
Some plastic baby bottles and some water bottles have
been pulled from the shelf by retailers. Grist is an
online environmental news outlet. The journalists
at Grist have been looking at the BPA issue for a few
years. We got a chance to talk with Sarah Burkhalter
at Grist about BPA and why it’s suddenly
in the news:
Transcript
Recently there’s been a big concern about bisphenol-A, or BPA, in some plastics. Some plastic baby bottles
and some water bottles have been pulled from the shelf by retailers. Grist is an online environmental news
outlet. The journalists at Grist have been looking at the BPA issue for a few years. We got a chance to talk
with Sarah Burkhalter at Grist about BPA and why it’s suddenly in the news:
Sarah Burkhalter: “BPA has been in our bottles for a long time, and there have just been some
more high-profile studies in the last year. Back in February 2007, the National Institutes of Health
came out with a report saying that there was a link to BPA and health problems. Even at that point,
people were switching over to glass baby bottles and things like that. But just in the same week,
there was another National Institutes of Health high-profile report, just a few days separate from
when Health Canada – the Canadian Health Department – also expressed concern. So, I just think
it was in the news, and people are suddenly realizing that this is a problem.”
Lester Graham: “So, it was a one-two hit in the media, plus when you mention baby bottles, or
possibly the liners of formula cans, that gets people a little nervous, if there’s something toxic in
that stuff.”
Burkhalter: “Absolutely. And, the thing with BPA is that it’s an endocrine disrupter, it can mimic
estrogen. And so the plastics industry has been saying, ‘well, we use it in such small amounts, no,
it’s no problem’. Other studies have said that even in very, very small amounts, BPA can sneak in
and change cell structure, and really muck-up the reproductive system. And it’s been linked to
early puberty, and breast cancer, and behavioral disorders, and all kinds of things. So when they
hear about this being in, you know, things that we’re regularly eating and drinking from, they pay
attention.”
Graham: “Now, here’s the big question – we’ve seen retailers pull some bottles off of the shelves,
there’s been this controversy with Nalgene, and now even a lawsuit against Nalgene about their
plastic bottles – what plastic bottles are safe to use, what ones can’t I use, how do I tell the
difference?”
Burkhalter: “well, BPA is found in number 7 plastic – that’s also known as polycarbonate or lexan –
and that’s the clear, hard plastic. So Nalgene bottles – not the white ones – but the brightly
colored, clear ones. Those are number 7. There’s also, as you mentioned, plastic adhesive in
linings of cans, some of those, BPA is also in some dental sealants. But when it comes to bottles,
number 7 is the one you want to watch out for when we’re talking about BPA. Number 3 has its
own problems – that’s PVC or vinyl – that’s another one you want to watch out for. If you gotta use
plastic, you’re gonna want to look for numbers 2, 4, and 5.”
Graham: “So we look for those numbers on the bottom of the bottle?”
Burkhalter: “Yup. Those are, I mean, you know, they’re not on every plastic, but if there is a
number on them, its ‘2, 4, and 5 to stay alive’. It’s the rhyme I just made up.”
If you don't recycle, the bin can make a handy shelf. Cities are trying to get people who don't recycle much or at all... to get into the habit by offering them incentives.
Recycling can have some economic benefits. But as a country, we’re
just not doing that much of it. The US Environmental Protection
Agency says the national recycling rate has been hovering around 30%
for several years now. Rebecca Williams reports some cities
are trying to get people to recycle more… by paying them to recycle:
Transcript
Recycling can have some economic benefits. But as a country, we’re
just not doing that much of it. The US Environmental Protection
Agency says the national recycling rate has been hovering around 30%
for several years now. Rebecca Williams reports some cities
are trying to get people to recycle more… by paying them to recycle:
It’s not easy getting someone to admit they don’t recycle. But I was
over at my friend Andrea’s house for dinner, and she confessed.
(Sound of Andrea opening a can of beans)
“Normally I would take this can and throw it away in the garbage and
never look at it again. I don’t really like cleaning garbage to throw
it away.”
Now in her defense, she doesn’t really produce that much trash to begin
with. Maybe just one small bag a week.
Andrea says it just feels like too much work to recycle. Taking the
labels off, cleaning out the cans, walking down four flights of stairs.
Though they’re indoors and carpeted.
(Sound of garage door opening)
Right now she’s using her recycle bin as a shelf. She’s got some books
and a quart of oil sitting on it.
If Andrea did recycle, she’d have to drag her bin out to the curb from
the garage. About oh, three feet or so.
“In the mornings I run pretty late so just taking the garbage out and
lugging it down the stairs along with my bags for work is quite a hassle in
and of itself and I’m proud of myself for doing that, so… (laughs).”
Now… my friend can’t be the only one out there who doesn’t recycle.
A recent survey found that 28 states reported a decrease in their
recycling rates since 2001.
That’s not good news for cities, because cities can benefit from
recycling. If they can divert enough recyclables from the waste
stream, they can avoid some of the high costs of disposing waste in
landfills.
But even if you have trucks that drive around and pick up people’s cans
and newspapers from their curbs, there’s no guarantee they’ll put them
out there for you.
Unless, of course, you offer them a reward.
Some cities on the East Coast are paying people to recycle. They’re
using a company called RecycleBank.
With RecycleBank, you get a recycling container with a tracking chip
embedded in it. You can toss all your cans and newspapers and bottles
into that one container… so, none of that annoying sorting.
Ron Gonen is the company’s co-founder.
“There’s a mechanical arm on the truck that picks up your container,
reads the chip, identifies that your household recycled and how much
your household recycled. The amount that your household recycled is
translated into RecycleBank dollars.”
Those RecycleBank dollars can be cashed in as coupons to shop at more
than 300 stores.
“We really look at it from the lens of the recycling industry and that if
your household recycles you’re actually creating value, and some of
that value should be passed back to you.”
Gonen says each family can earn up to $400 a year. He says people are
so into it, they’re even bringing stuff from work to recycle at home.
And he says recycling rates have tripled or even quadrupled in
neighborhoods using RecycleBank.
But some cities have found incentives only work up to a point. So
they’re making it against the law not to recycle. Seattle, for
example, won’t pick up your trash if there’s stuff in it that could be
recycled.
Timothy Croll is Seattle’s Solid Waste Director. He says trash
collectors aren’t going through trash cans, but they are peeking in.
“It’s not like we’re taking these things into an MRI or anything like
that it’s just what the garbage collector can see at the top when they
open the lid.”
Croll says the law works. He says only a few trash cans have been left
behind with a note. And Seattle did try incentives first. The city
charges residents less for trash collection if they use a teeny little
trash can and recycle a lot more. Croll says that’s been pretty
successful. But he says the city wanted to push for even more
recycling… so, they made it a law.
“Some tools work better for some people than others. For some people
it might be they know it’s the right thing to do, but their lives are
busy, and unless you give them one more reason they’re just not going
to get over that threshold and do it. It’s like yeah I know, I know I
should floss too, you know?”
Croll says it’s up to cities to first make recycling convenient… And
then try sweetening the deal.
You know, my non-recycling friend DOES recycle her soda cans. She
lives in Michigan, so she gets 10 cents back for each one. It’s enough
of an incentive that she’s saving bags of cans at work and stashing
cans in every corner under her kitchen sink.
When people drink a tall glass of milk, they seldom think of how much energy it takes to produce the milk they consume. (Photo by Adrian
Becerra)
A dairy farmer who got tired of shipping his milk to far away dairies is now processing it on the farm. By not trucking it away, he’s reducing the amount of energy used to produce milk and giving local customers different kinds of dairy products. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:
Transcript
A dairy farmer who got tired of shipping his milk to far away dairies is now processing it on the farm. By not trucking it away, he’s reducing the amount of energy used to produce milk and giving local customers different kinds of dairy products. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:
(sound of glass clinking)
Recycled glass bottles are banging around inside a giant dish washer.
“Bottles just are put in here in rows and they go through a soap tank for 3 to 4 minutes and they come through a few rinse cycles and a chlorine rinse, down the belt down to the filler.”
After they’re washed, the bottles are filled with milk and capped. Crates of fat-free, 2 percent, whole and chocolate milk are stacked into a cooler.
Sally and George Shetler set up this bottling plant on their farm 5 years ago. They say for a pretty small investment, they’re reaping more profits. They’re also saving energy because they don’t ship their milk somewhere else for processing. Their 38 cows are just a few feet away in their barn, so the milk’s journey from cows udders to containers is short.
George Shetler used to just sell his raw milk to a company that would pump it out of his tank and into their truck. But he says – like milk everywhere – the first trip was only the beginning of a long trip for his cows’ milk.
“Now some of the larger dairies, it goes through one or two transfer stations where it’s transferred from one truck to another truck to another truck to a milk plant. I’ve got a cousin that used to drive for a milk company out west where he was hauling milk from New Mexico up to North Dakota for processing then some of it goes from North Dakota to Wisconsin for processing.”
And so a lot of fuel is wasted getting the milk from cow to jug. George Shetler says he’s also saving energy at the beginning of the process. Instead of trucking in grain, or burning fuel to plant and harvest grain to feed the cows, he’s letting his cows eat grass.
Brian Halweil is with the WorldWatch Institute in Washington DC. He has written a book on local agriculture called “Eat Here.” He says the grass-fed cows require less energy to produce milk than do cows on modern farms.
“The feed that the cows eat needs to be brought in, driven in, which consumes a lot of energy, the production of that grain takes a lot of energy, there’s water pumping and cleaning that’s associated with factory farmed dairy cows and in contrast to that the grass-fed farms essentially runs on sunlight.”
Sunlight is the only energy grass needs to grow. But despite all the savings in energy costs, the Shetlers’ milk is more expensive. That’s because the huge system in place to distribute milk works on economies of scale. The big dairies can balance production and distribution. Milk reaches just the right place at the right time in the right amount. The dairies also get huge government subsidies to keep the price of milk lower.
“It’s kind of a fake price that we pay in the supermarket.”
Brian Halweil says that the price should not be the only reason to buy a locally produced gallon. Burning extra diesel fuel and gasoline should also be considered.
“It’s a price that doesn’t include the cost of shipping, that doesn’t include all the pollution associated with that shipping and it doesn’t include all the health and environmental and social impact of factory-raised animals versus a local grass-fed dairy.”
And many people would rather buy the milk from cows that don’t receive as much antibiotic medicines and hormone injections that make the cows produce more milk.
Inside their pasteurizing vat the milk is heated to a lower temperature. This allows some of the enzymes to stay alive, which some people believe is healthier. One customer says she comes to the store right on the farm because she wants to connect with the people and animals that make what she drinks.
“It’s much better. That’s all I can say. It’s wonderful milk.”
And many of the customers who buy the locally-produced milk from nearby stores say they prefer it. Just like farmers markets, local dairy products are becoming popular. Environmentalists believe that’s good for the local economy and for saving fuel.
