Some Supposedly Green Products Are Not
    By V ronique Lorelle
    Le Monde

    Monday 14 May 2007

    Several French companies agreed to associate themselves with Earth Month, an operation much in vogue in North America and Canada, supposed to sensitize the public to the environment and to protecting the planet.

    Consequently, from April 22 up to June 5 - World Environment Day - Sephora perfumeries are promoting PlantLove from the American company, Cargo, the first "plant-friendly lipstick," the tube of which is biodegradable (it is manufactured from a corn-based polymer under the NatureWorks brand). This lipstick is wrapped in a cardboard box that contains flower seeds: one need only dampen and plant the box to see some lovely flowers blossom ...

    For their part, the Auchan stores have chosen for their pastries and the Prim ale producer has chosen for its "garden" vegetables containers produced from the same vegetable-based ingredients. So as to reassure the French, planetary citizens, that they may opt, without a great deal of effort, for a more ecological lifestyle.

    Omission

    "All this is made possible," explains Ingeo NatureWorks in a recent communiqu , "thanks to the NatureWorks polymer, a revolutionary material based on 100 percent renewable vegetable resources and not on precious fossil resources, such as oil." Nothing is truer. What the company - a subsidiary of the American seed producer Cargill - neglects to say is that its revolutionary material is the fruit of genetically modified bacteria that are made to swallow tons of American corn.

    Modified to convert corn glucose into a bioplastic or a biofiber, much as silkworms do, these transgenic bacteria are put to production in huge fermentation tanks at a cost that claims to be competitive with the petroleum-derived products that are plastics.

    The fiber obtained is sold under the Ingeo label, and already serves to manufacture a number of so-called ecological clothing lines. You might as well say genetically modified organisms (GMO) can help preserve the planet, but the Americans, burned by GMO prohibitions in Europe, have kept quiet about their process. At the risk of infantilizing consumers?