The Story of Stuff Project

World’s top corporations cause $2.2 trillion in environmental damage

A study currently underway for the United Nations is calculating the cost of pollution and other environmental  damage caused by the 3,000 biggest public companies in the world. The study, which will be published this summer, has found that the economic cost of environmental damage by these top 3,000 companies is $2.2 trillion dollars, or more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable. This includes greenhouse gas emissions, other pollution, and water degradation. The final amount is likely to increase once additional costs – like toxic waste – are incorporated.

In an article about this upcoming report, the Guardian newspaper wrote: “The report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.”

So basically, what this upcoming report says is that a big chunk – about 1/3 – of the profits that these big companies are making is due to the fact that they are not paying the full costs of operating. They are shoving a whole range of costs – from pollution to climate change to water depletion – onto communities around the world – onto us! Communities around the world are bearing the costs with degraded health, soil, water and climate change. That’s just not fair.

In the Story of Stuff film, I talked about how externalized costs allowed me to buy a little radio for the irrationally low price of $4.99. This report in a good first step at showing the global scale of externalized costs. If we’re going to get our economy and environment back in order, a top priority must be forcing companies to pay the full costs of production. In economist-speak, this means internalizing externalities. That would be a strong motivator to get companies to invest in the cleaner, less polluting approaches and encourage all of us to avoid superfluous consumption. If the true cost of that cotton t-shirt or iPod was really included in the price tag, we might think twice before chucking and replacing it before we really need to. Think about that next time you look at those insanely low prices on so much consumer stuff – who is really paying the full cost of producing all this? Apparently not the companies which make it!

Remember in The Story of Stuff film, I talked about dioxin, a compound which is among the most toxic manmade chemicals known to science?

Dioxin is really nasty stuff. It causes a range of health problems, including cancer.  Dioxin is not created intentionally; no one sets up to actually make this super toxic poison. Instead, it is created as a byproduct and then released from a number of industrial processes including  burning garbage in incinerators, bleaching paper pulp with chlorine and the production of products as diverse as PVC plastic, pesticides, and Agent Orange. Because dioxin is connected to so many of today’s industrial processes, it is widely distributed in our communities where it builds up the food chain and eventually reaches each of our bodies.

Right now, those of us in the U.S. have a unique opportunity to  protect our communities from dioxin. (Of course, we also need to protect communities everywhere from dioxin and a good place to start on that front is IPEN, which is working on a global treaty to ban the most toxic chemicals, including dioxin.)

While preventing new dioxin is a better long term solution than cleaning it up after it has been produced and released, we still do need to clean up the stuff that is already contaminating our communities. The sooner, the better. This week, the U.S. EPA is seeking comments on its proposed cleanup guidelines for dioxin and the public comment period ends on Friday February 26th.

The EPA’s guidelines are a step in the right direction, but dioxin can be toxic at even very low levels of exposure, and that’s why we’re asking for your help to press EPA to develop stronger cleanup guidelines. We’re up against some of the biggest chemical polluters in the world – corporations like Dow Chemical.  We don’t have their big bucks but we have one thing they don’t — people power, people like you.

Please send a quick email, urging EPA to strengthen its proposed dioxin clean up guidelines, here.   Public comments are due Friday, February 26th, so please act this week.

There are many organizations working on stopping dioxin at source. In the U.S.  contact the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. Internationally contact IPEN. And if, like me, burning garbage in incinerators – which destroys resources and releases dioxin – makes you especially furious, contact GAIA to get involved in promoting safe and fair alternatives.

But first, send a quick message to EPA to ask them to make the strongest possible clean up standards for dioxin. Remember, public comment period ends on Friday, February 26th. While dioxin contamination may last forever, the public comment period doesn’t.

Thanks!
Annie

I want to pause in the midst of the much needed debate about climate change solutions, as I do every December 2^nd -3^rd to remember Bhopal.

Last night was the 25th anniversary of the disaster in Bhopal, India,  where a Union Carbide  pesticide plant released 27 tons of toxic chemical into a crowded sleeping city, killing 8,000 immediately and injuring over a half a million people. It is widely recognized as the world’s biggest industrial chemical accident ever.

I’ve been to Bhopal, where survivors told me stories of waking in the night, feeling a fierce burning in their eyes and throat. First some thought neighbors were burning chilies. Others thought the day of reckoning had come. In the middle of the night, thousands started running. People were trampled, children lost, thousands injured and killed.

The disaster started that night 25 years ago and it continues to this day:

Unbelievably, after 25 years, the company still refuses to share its information on the toxic health impacts of the leaked gas, calling it a “trade secret,” thwarting efforts to provide medical care to victims of exposure. The abandoned Union Carbide factory, now owned by Dow Chemical, still sits there, leaking hazardous chemicals and waste left behind in the aftermath of the disaster, poisoning the next generation of Bhopalis.

Yesterday, as on every anniversary, the gas survivors marched in Bhopal demanding health care, clean water, justice and an end to the toxics-based industrial production model in widespread use today.

The survivors aren’t just asking for environmental health and justice for their community but for every community. Their slogan – No More Bhopals – means no more Bhopals there or anywhere. No more toxic chemical poisoning.  No more writing off whole communities as disposable. No more sacrificing people and the planet for business as usual.

As Bhopal survivor Rashida Bee said: “We are not expendable. We are not flowers offered at the altar of profit and power. We are dancing flames committed to conquering darkness and to challenging those who threaten the planet and the magic and mystery of life.”

So today I pause, remember and renew my resolve to keep working towards a world with No More Bhopals.

If you’re like me, an increasing amount of your worries these days focus on the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and the resulting potential for devastating climate chaos.

Years ago, when I first heard about climate change, I figured someone else would work all that out while I kept plodding away with my work on consumption, pollution and waste. Well, guess what? They didn’t work it out; in fact, the climate situation is far worse today than even recent scientific predictions. And guess what else? It turns out that climate and consumption are actually the same issue.

You see, most of the greenhouse gases countries emit come from our materials economy: the way we make, use, transport, and throw away all the stuff in our lives. As Boston College professor (and one of my favorite authors) Juliet Schor said “Global consumerism devours resources like there’s no tomorrow. And unless we address how much we consume, we won’t succeed in averting disastrous climate change.”

A majority of scientists now say we need to significantly reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere if we want the planet to resemble something close to what it is like today, supporting the kind of life that it does today. To do this, we simply have to use less Stuff – especially oil and coal. We have to rethink, redesign and rebuild a lot of things. We have to figure out different modes of transportation, growing food, building buildings, and having fun that don’t require endless new Stuff. It’s very possible to make these changes, but they won’t happen on their own. We need to get started.

Unfortunately, most of the world’s leaders and big businesses are instead promoting policy approaches that don’t bring us anywhere near the level of change that climate scientists say is needed—let’s call these “false solutions.” And there’s another problem with these policy approaches: the details are so technical and policy wonkish that it’s often hard to figure out what they are even talking about.

I wondered if it would be possible to explain the leading false solution, Cap and Trade, in a clear compelling way so that more of us are inspired to join the conversation. Working with Climate Justice Now!, the Durban Group for Climate Justice and Free Range Studios, we produced our new short film, The Story of Cap and Trade, to do just that.

We hope you like it. And more importantly, we hope it inspires you to get involved in the most important conversation of our lives.

I hope you all had a restful holiday week.

I spent my free time last week reading a fascinating new book by the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Mark Schapiro. The book is “Exposed – The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products: Who’s At Risk and What’s At Stake for American Power.” In this book, Schapiro compares approaches to environmental and health regulations regarding electronics, chemicals, food and more in the U.S. and the European Union. He documents the differences in the regulations as well as some of the factors leading to these differences.

The overall finding of the book is that the E.U. is adopting a series of new regulations which aresignificantly more protective of health and the environment than the regulations in the U.S. The U.S., in turn, is increasingly becoming the market of last resort for those products too toxic to be accepted in the E.U. or a number of other countries which are following the E.U.’s regulatory lead. For example, theRemoval of Hazardous Substances directive, known as the RoHS directive, requires that six toxic substances — mercury, cadmium, lead, chromium and two chemical flame retardants – be removed from all electronically powered devices made or sold in EU countries. Schapiro explains that “The RoHS directive became law after hundreds of studies suggested the ingredients could have potent carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting effects. The EU also wanted to see its electronics recycled – and none of those six substances are recyclable. They are too toxic.”

As “”Exposed” explains, prior to the RoHS directive, many European electronic manufacturers and retailers warned of economic catastrophe if forced to redesign their products without these toxic chemicals. But that didn’t happen. Business is humming along fine and European consumers of electronic gadgets are free from a number of known toxics to which we, in the U.S., continue to be exposed.

Mid-way through reading this book came Christmas. My 15 year old nephew got an ipod touch. My daughter and her 12 year old cousin sang and danced to music on her ipod. I went jogging with a Zen portable music player. On the flight home from my family gathering, I noticed that about a third of the passengers had some shiny new electronic gadget to play music or otherwise keep them busy. My guess was that few of these people know that their portable music players contain known toxic chemicals. And fewer still probably know that these same chemicals are outlawed in Europe.

Here’s the deal: I am not against music. In fact, I love music. I am grateful to be able to have music in our lives. However, I don’t think we should have to risk exposureto toxic chemicals in order to crank the tunes. Likewise, the workers who manufacture these devices and who recycle them at the end of their life shouldn’t be exposed to toxic chemicals either.

If it is possible to make electronics in Europe without these toxic chemicals, then it is possible here. We need to demand this.

Schapiro writes “Americans are being exposed to hazards from which their European peers are being protected. In one industry after another, a new double standard is emerging: that between the protection offered Europe’s citizens, and those afforded to Americans. Repeatedly, American companies that have been forced to meet higher standards in Europe, claim to Americans that they cannot do the same thing back in the United States. Why can’t companies do in America what they’re already doing in Europe?”

Schapiro also explains: “The EU has been demanding that its industry take responsibility for the collateral health damages caused by its products, and it has done so with innovations that are leading the world.”

I’d like to suggest some actions for all of us in the New Year.
1. Check out Mark Schapiro’s book Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007) Tell your friends, tell your neighbors.

2. Photocopy sections of the book and send them to elected officials and electronics producers asking “Why Not Here?” Why has the U.S. gone from being a leader to a laggard in regulating for environmental and health protection? If companies can make electronics without super toxics in Europe, why not here? Our children, our communities deserve the strongest possible environmental and health protection too!

3. Contact one of the many excellent groups working on environmental health issues in the electronics industry to get more involved. Here are some suggestions; please post other recommendations or ideas also.

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
www.svtc.org
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition is a diverse organization engaged in research, advocacy and grassroots organizing to promote human health and environmental justice in response to the rapid growth of the high-tech industry

Basel Action Network
www.ban.org
BAN works to ensure that exports of hazardous electronic waste (Particularly from the USA) to developing countries, exposed by BAN, are eliminated and replaced with producer responsibility and green design programs/legislation.

Electronics Take Back Coalition
www.computertakeback.com
ETBC works to protect the health and well being of electronics users, workers, and the communities where electronics are produced and discarded by requiring consumer electronics manufacturers and brand owners to take full responsibility for the life cycle of their products, through effective public policy requirements or enforceable agreements.

Let’s crank the tunes this New Year’s Eve and into the future while we work together for toxic-free tunes in the U.S. and globally. There is simply no need to have all these toxic chemicals in our music players and other electronics. And if we make our voices heard, we can change this. Europe has already shown that it is possible.

Cheers,
Annie