Feature

Dump the environment — and we dump you

Women hold a powerful weapon in their purses, says Iris Webb. And as consumers they should wield their power in aid of the environment

Women have always been aware that we do not inherit the earth from our fathers but borrow it from our children; and recent statements by the prime minister indicate that she to may have begun to share this view. Environmental matters now appear high on the political agenda — but for many women they have never been anywhere else.

Clearly the state of our planet is a concern for us all. Men and women alike suffer if the ozone layer is diminished and the number of skin cancers rise in consequence, and everyone gets their feet wet if global warming (the greenhouse effect) melts the ice caps.

But many environmental issues are of particular, and direct, concern to women; pesticide residues in food; the quality of drinking water; the pollution and safety of beaches; public transport; the relationship between low level radiation and childhood leukaemia; lead pollution and children’s behaviour and the connection between dioxins and sanitary protection.

Sanitary towels, tampons, disposable nappies and loo rolls are all ‘bleached paper products’, and it is the bleaching process that has been the focus of recent environmental and health concern.

When wood pulp is treated with chlorine based bleaches (to give us the soft whiteness the marketing men think we require) chemicals called organochlorines are formed.

One family of organochlorines is the dioxins — the most dangerous member being 2,3,7,8-TCDD. No safe level of this dioxin has been found and scientists are concerned over the health risks from exposure to very small amounts over long periods of time. These risks include damage to our immune system, birth defects, reproductive effects and cancer.

For every tonne of paper bleached with chlorine gas, some 35-65kg of organochlorines are formed. This means that between 51,000 and 87,000 tonnes of chemicals are discharged into the environment every year just to satisfy the UK ‘demand’.

But not all the dioxin is discharged into the environment — some tiny amounts stay behind in the nappies, tampons and sanitary products. The amounts which may remain are minuscule, but the toxicity of dioxins is such that, even in trace amounts of parts per trillion, some Swedish doctors are concerned that using tampons bleached using chlorine may pose a health risk.

So, do women want products that cause damage to the environment and which may affect their health? Until very recently manufacturers assumed that we did; but work by the Women’s Environmental Network which recently published the book The Sanitary Protection Scandal, has concluded that if women are given a choice they will chose unbleached products. In Sweden unbleached nappies have now completely taken over the market. Two manufacturers (Peaudouce and Proctor and Gamble) have now made the same product available in the UK, and women now await other non-chlorine bleached sanitary products to become available.

Of course women not only make consumer choices that affect their own bodies, but choices that often affect a whole family’s health. In this respect the move towards healthier eating has produced a demand for products that are uncontaminated by pesticide residues.

Recently the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food admitted that more than 100 types of pesticide (about a quarter of the UK total) have not been safety-tested since 1965. This is even more worrying when one considers that the government will not allow the public to see the results of such tests as were carried out for pesticides registered before October 1986.

The government relies largely on data supplied to it by the manufacturers. This is of profound concern to environmentalists as many pesticides are known to be carcinogens (cancer causing agents) and teratogens (chemicals which may cause birth defects).

In April 1988 the government promised to set legal limits — maximum residue levels — for pesticides in the ‘most important fruit and vegetable components of the average diet’ but some common pesticides were left out. Among those was an anti-sprouting agent for potatoes called tecnazine. In January of this year Friends of the Earth and Channel 4 TV programme What it’s worth found potatoes on sale in Sainsbury, Gateway and Bugden supermarkets which contained levels of tecnazine double the international standards.

This is just one example of a pesticide which turns up in our food, but recently it has been revealed that our drinking water is also contaminated with pesticides. Nearly 300 UK drinking-water sources are now contaminated by pesticides at levels that exceed EC regulations.

Water contamination of another sort has also caused concern. Over four million people in the UK now drink water whose nitrate levels also exceed EC standards.

A level of 50mg per litre of water has been set in order to prevent the risk of ‘blue baby syndrome’ (where the oxygen carrying haemoglobin in the blood is chemically bound by nitrate, and oxygen uptake by the baby is limited). In both of these cases he risk of stomach cancer is entailed when nitrate is converted into nitrite in the stomach.

Pesticides and nitrate pollution both result from the intensive nature of agri-business.

Dioxin, nitrate and pesticide contamination are merely illustrations of environmental issues that concern women and health. They are only the symptoms of a disease. The disease itself is thinking that we can go on treating our environment as a glorified sewer.

The late 1980’s is supposed to be the time of that individual most beloved of marketing men — the ‘Green consumer’. Women, who make the vast majority of consumer decisions, are in a powerful position to ensure that personal health and the health of the environment go hand in hand. This kind of consumer pressure has begun to show its effects, in the banning of the use of whale products in Britain and moves to ban the use of atmosphere-damaging CFC’s in aerosols.

By making our preferences known for pesticide-free food, CFC-free aerosols, unbleached paper products, low- phosphate detergents, uncontaminated beaches and pure drinking-water we can change our own lives for the better, and do our part in saving the planet. Women should give a clear message to manufacturers, farmers and politicians alike: ‘Dump the environment and we will dump you’. There has never been a better time to say it.