Dow Chemical's Biotech Greenwash

For eco-sensitive consumers, a whole new series of moral shopping dilemmas is about to hit the marketplace, raising difficult questions with no easy answers about just what makes a product ‘green.’ The confusion starts with a simple bushel of corn.

Last year a Minnesota-based biotech company, Cargill Dow, unveiled their groundbreaking fleece material called Natureworks, which at first blush seemed to be the environmental wunderkind technology always promised.

Rather than spinning the fuzzy fabric from oil, Natureworks uses the natural sugars in corn to create a base material similar to plastic. The result is an annually renewable "green" product, free of the taint of the pollution and controversy of the oil industry. It’s also a better product: the corn fabric is as warm as regular fleece, less likely to retain odors and less likely to burn.

Even better, the technology isn't limited to apparel. Cargill Dow has plans to further "green" the marketplace with a bewildering array of corn-based products including carpeting, wall panels, upholstery, interior furnishings, outdoor fabrics, as well as plastics like film around CDs and golf ball sleeves. In June, the company announced a deal with Bed Bath and Beyond to produce a line of "Natural Balance" pillows, comforters and mattress pads filled with Natureworks, and also unveiled new packaging that would utilize Natureworks for milk cartons.

It’s even solving the problem of flooding in Taiwan, and what to do with old computers and Walkmen. Just last month, a deal was announced to use Natureworks plastic bags to replace oil based ones in Taiwan. The old models were recently banned because of overflowing landfills and disposal tunnels backing up and flooding due to blockages from the some 16 million bags discarded there daily. No such worries with PLA bags; one you’re finished with it, PLA can be completely recycled in commercial compost facilities. That’s exactly what will happen to new Fujitsu Biblo Laptops and Sony Walkmen -- their cases are set to be made from biodegradable corn based polymers sometime in 2004.

All this from an engineering process that uses half the amount of fossil fuels used in traditional oil-based technologies. In recognition of its achievements, the company received the 2002 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge, Alternative Reaction Conditions Award. The award, given by the Environmental Protection Agency, recognizes companies that reduce or eliminate the need for hazardous materials in manufacturing.

So what would cause environmentalists to raise concerns over the proliferation of these wonder products? In a word, plenty. Missing entirely from Cargill Dow’s press materials is any acknowledgement of the fact that the source material for these products is genetically engineered corn, designed by one of Cargill Dow's corporate parents, Cargill Inc., a world leader in genetic engineering.

That’s a potentially huge problem, since millions of consumers around the world and several governments have rejected the use of genetically engineered (GE) products, because of the unforeseen consequences of unleashing genetically altered organisms into nature. Before the development of Natureworks, GE materials have been used almost exclusively in food, which have drawn well-organized opposition campaigns; recently Zambia made headlines for turning down an offer of 10,000 pounds of rice from the United States because it was GE.

But with PLA, Cargill Dow may be able to do an end run around the global campaign to stop GE proliferation. By creating so many products with such an irresistible green appeal, voices of concern may be drowned out by the sheer weight of the marketplace. As John Ohman, Cargill Dow’s Director of Sleep Products, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in an unintentional double entendre, "This is just the beachhead for a whole new way of doing things."