Debunking Sustainability Myths: Trees, Paper vs. Plastic & 'Natural' Products

In the kick-off episode of "Now, That's What I Call Green", Brianne West, your nature obsessed biochemist, busts some sustainability myths wide open!

Ever wondered about the real scoop on tree planting or whether paper is actually better than plastic...? Or maybe you've been seduced by the "natural" label on products and thought, "How natural is it really?" Stick around for the latest eco-goss and snag a nifty tip to supercharge your eco-journey. Jump in for a laid-back, science-backed deep dive into the green world!

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Transcript:

Hello and welcome to the very first episode of Now That's What I Call Green. I'm your host Brianne West. You may know me as the founder and former CEO of Ethique or just that opinionated person on social media who gets sick of all the rubbish surrounding sustainability. And well, that's really what this podcast is about. I don't know how much I love podcasting because I get to talk to myself and no one interrupts on my other podcast. Now That's What I Call Business. But as much as I love business, I love our planet more. So I want to talk about it. I want to share the awe-inspiring, incredible stuff that I know about our planet and everything that lives on it, and bust some of the absolute nonsense that you hear.

My favourite that I hear every day, and we're reminded again today, that's an absolute standard in the beauty industry, is that natural means sustainable. Well, spoiler alert, it doesn't. But we'll get to that soon. So this podcast is all about exploring the fascinating world of sustainability, busting myths, sharing practical tips to help you live a more eco-friendly life, but without the judgement or the guilt.

I just want to get you as excited as I am about the seemingly small things like where the gold in your necklace was first formed, and how whales are actually really critical to helping us prevent further climate change. If you don't, and I'm going to use air quotes here, believe in climate change, you'll hate this and I'm not interested in spending my life trying to convince you when the vast, vast majority of people understand that what is happening is scary as fuck and they would like to know what they can do about it without giving up their entire lives.

Because well, let's face it, most of us won't leave our jobs, our families, our homes to change the world. And whilst I applaud those who put it all on the line for environmental protection, I'm here to help everyday people figure out what they can do every day to make their impact a little bit less. Every fortnight we're going to dive into a different topic, discuss recent news and end with a simple sustainability tip that you can implement in your daily life. So without any further going on, let's crack into it.

If by the way you want to hear more about the sustainable business side of things, head over to Now, That's What I Call Business, as I bring people along the journey of building Incrediballs, which is my newest startup that is going to rid the world of plastic bottles. Okay, so let's start with that myth I mentioned earlier. Is natural more sustainable? Big no. I need sound effects for like a klaxon. I tried to do a TikTok video on this a long time ago but this answer... she's complex. People often say, well duh, obviously, but this is a funny one ingrained into our minds that natural just means better. Natural is safer, more sustainable, it's good for people and planet.

Whereas of course, if you delve into it even a tiny bit, you come across something like arsenic, which is naturally occurring, sure, but will kill you without breaking a sweat. So fun fact, sodium hydroxide, it's what turns oils into soap. I used to make soap by the absolute bucket load in the teak's early days, and I remember so clearly walking into my very first chemistry lab at university, I was so excited that we were going to set something on fire or create a new element. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit.

And guess what we did? We made goddamn soap. Sodium hydroxide, often classed as natural, sure, it's made from naturally occurring ingredients, but it is put through a synthetic process because sodium hydroxide does not occur naturally. It's also violently corrosive, evidenced by the tiny scars you can see on my hands, as it has a pH of 13 to 14. In full context, neutral solutions like pure water have a pH of 7, whereas the acid in your stomach is about 2.

So natural isn't necessarily safe. Neither is synthetic. The origin of a material doesn't really tell you much about it. Sidebar! But I do so enjoy when companies come out with the whole, our products are a hundred percent safe for you and your family. Like, shouldn't that be a given? Imagine selling a product that has no other selling point beyond the fact it won't kill you. That must make a marketing manager's life really hard. You know, I've gone off topic. Sustainable to me means that you can continue to do something for an infinite period of time without causing further damage to people or planet.

I think that's a fairly solid definition. We tend to assign sustainability just to planet and environment, but I believe it should encompass people and animals too. I mean, if it's doing harm to communities, how is that sustainable? So we know what sustainable means. So natural doesn't mean sustainable, and not only that, but it's often the opposite. So let's take something like essential oils, for example. So natural, delicious smelling, but far out the resources required to make them is enormous. To make 5ml of rose oil, it requires 250,000 petals, or about 8000 flowers. So think about the land use, the pesticides, the water, the fertiliser, it's incredibly resource intensive and frankly, rose is their worst smell.

There is a reason that Dick uses the essential oils we do, most of them are byproducts of the citrus industry for example. So to make up for this, there are a lot of synthetic alternatives on the market for rose that are a lot less resource intensive to make so they have less impact on the planet, but consumers tend not to like the idea of it. Another example that's been in the news recently is a company called Palmless. The clue is in the name, we're talking about palm oil. They make a synthetic palm oil replacement. The palm oil is probably the greatest example of natural doesn't mean sustainable.

Palm oil is without question devastating for people and planet not due to the product itself but due to our greed and constant demand for excessive amounts which continues to grow. It's in about 50% of the stuff in the supermarket, about 95% of your cosmetics and the production of palm oil leads to extensive deforestation, biodiversity loss, displacement of local communities and it also contributes significantly to global carbon emissions and yet it's totally natural. It comes from a palm tree. So when you next see a company touting natural, just remember it doesn't mean sustainable and it certainly doesn't mean safe. It's just a pretty word.

Next up is the prevailing opinion that if something isn't plastic it's better. This is a can of worms but I love opening them. I'm really interested in seeing when there will be a study done on how much the plastic bag ban has actually benefited the planet. Without question the impact of those thin single-use bags on wildlife is horrific. But the tenfold, or even more, increase in resource use to use bags that over 50% of people forget every time they go shopping, must be huge. Sometimes, plastic is a less impactful option. Note I didn't say good. Very little of what we actually do is good for the environment.

You have to use your cotton tote bag about 500 times according to some life-cycle studies for it to have the same impact on the environment as a single-use plastic bag. That tends to surprise people. In the news recently, Mars has backtracked on its new paper label, which is really paper and plastic, FYI, saying, oh actually, sorry, we can't actually be recycled. Paper takes more resources to make than plastic, both the raw material, cellulose, to make it, it takes more of that, and the energy to process it, and the water, and now they've created something that you can't even recycle. Perfect example of a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that's quite complex.

So just because something isn't plastic doesn't mean it's better. Plastic is relatively efficient to make although obviously it has an impact. It has a horrendous disposal issue obviously which is why we have rushed to fix one side of the equation without even considering the entire life cycle of the thing and factoring in the most important part human behaviour. The vast majority of us are more focused on our lives and convenience because life is busy, to remember to bring every reusable thing we're supposed to. This brings me to straws. Metal reusable straws have to be used over 100 times and on average they are not used anywhere near that often.

The best option, unless you require a straw for medical or disability reasons, is to skip it altogether. You look far more elegant drinking without a straw anyway. And what annoys me about the straw debate is it's kind of a straw man. Yes, I did that on purpose. We've all moved to single-use paper straws, which take more resources, still won't be recycled, they suck, and so often people use two over the course of a drink because they collapse and anyone using a flexible plastic straw because again they have to, I judge for it.

And we've not moved the needle for planetary health whatsoever. That video of that turtle with the straw struck up its nose was horrific to watch, and I'm glad it drew awareness to an issue, but we've not fixed it with paper straws, we've made it worse.

This podcast is actually quite therapeutic, I've just been able to rant for the last few minutes. So finally, our third myth of the day, planting trees will fight climate change. I remember when I first heard about the Trillium Tree Project, I was so excited because I was like, this is totally doable, we can do this, and therefore climate change won't be a problem. I don't know if I believed it because I actually believed it, or I believed it because I wanted to and it seemed like such an easy way to avoid a scary future. Trees are obviously amazing. They provide some of our oxygen, though not as much as most people think.

The sea provides 50% of it. They create habitats, strengthen the ground, prevent erosion, help regulate temperature, which is why green cities are much cooler than straight concrete ones. They help with flooding, so those same cities aren't constantly underwater, which cities are beginning to realise is important now. They're great for mental well-being, they improve air quality, the list goes on. But we really only seem to focus a lot of the time on the fact that they can absorb carbon dioxide, and obviously they do.

You might think you could just do a quick calculation to figure out how many trees we'd need to offset our carbon emissions. For instance, the average American emits about 16 tonnes of CO2 a year. And a mature tree can absorb around 25 kgs of CO2, right? So if you do the math, you might think we need about 640 trees per person, or it's about 200 billion trees for the entire US. But it's not that straightforward. Our planet's carbon cycle is extremely complicated, and we've thrown this cycle off completely. And figuring out how many trees we'd need to get it back in sync is super complicated. There's too many variables. We need to consider where we're going to plant all these new trees.

I mean, lots of these areas that used to be forests and now cities and farms, industrial areas, factories. And even if we could plant 200 billion new trees somewhere in the USA, and remember, that is just for the USA, they don't immediately start offsetting our emissions at their maximum rate because young trees absorb less CO2 because they're smaller. Plus, trees don't live forever, so when they die, they rot and they release all that CO2, in some instances. In some environments, it's retained a little bit longer.

Again, it's another complicated variable. And there's a limit to how much CO2 trees can actually suck up anyway. They need nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil to grow, and if there's not enough of those nutrients, it'll limit how much the trees can actually store. So the reality is, whilst planting trees is obviously a great idea, we should probably focus on preserving the forests we already have, rather than just relying on new ones sprinkled here and there. It's actually a whole lot easier not cutting down trees as well.

I mean, by all means, go plant trees. But we still need to stop polluting. I'm also going to talk about carbon offsets at another time because that's something that's become overly complicated and definitely not something companies and people can just rely on whilst they carry on doing what it is they want to do. I'm going to move on to the news section. Fast flashes from the news this week.

China has been hit by the most horrendous storms led into flooding and the cost of disasters in July alone sits at $5.7 billion, which is about $9.5 billion. Yep, I said billion with a B. China said that natural disasters has caused 147 deaths or disappearances in July, and they have had the heaviest rains since records began. China has been hit really hard by extreme weather in recent months, from record-breaking heatwaves to this deadly rain, and it's no doubt a sign of things to come. In better news, Amazon countries are setting up a scientific panel to put an end to deforestation.

The Amazon of course is the single most important rainforest on earth for biodiversity and happily deforestation was down 66% last month. They want to form something like the IPCC, so the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I've got to be honest, I have no faith in these committees. They seem to, look I know they work hard and have the best intentions, but the outcomes are thin on the ground. We'll see how it goes.

In a story that will surprise absolutely no one, fast fashion brands are so far off their carbon emission reduction track that they are lost in the forest. Fashion is responsible for about 8-10% of global emissions. It's the third most polluting industry. Some good news, bad news and well, news that probably won't surprise anybody. But before we wrap up, I want to leave you with a practical sustainability tip. I have a handy dandy book called 365 Ways to Save the Planet. I expect about 350 of them to be complete rubbish. But let's give it a go.

I'm going to select a page at random and then we'll see what it says. Well, we did not start strong. Number 177 is make your own coasters. Well, number 2, adopt a tree. How interesting. This goes to show you the complexity of the tree debate, because this book here tells me that 2,000 trees would need to be planted to offset the CO2 for your life, which of course does not work because we just learned that it's 640 trees per year.

We all want more trees to be planted. Now a great way to plant more trees, if that's what you want to do, is head along to something called ecology, E-C-O-L-O-G-I dot com, or Only One, which is only dot one. They, for a small fee, every month they plant trees, they pull plastic out of the ocean and plant coral. There are a great couple of companies that let you have the impact you want to, and they do have a meaningful impact at a monthly cost that's affordable. Ecology is more affordable than only dot one. It's entirely up to you. As my tip to you today, go and sign up to one of those organisations.

If you have a business, go and sign up your business. Well, that is all for today. I hope you learned something new and feel ready to challenge companies to do better. Because at the end of the day, if we really want to save our planet, well, we need to get businesses to change. Remember, as always, the single best thing you can do for the planet is to vote with your dollar and only buy things you truly need and vote with your vote. Aotearoa, an election is coming up. Don't read into what the media tells you. Make sure you truly research statistics and policies. And let me know what you think about this new podcast and what you would like to see policies. And let me know what you think about this new podcast and what you would like to see coming up.

I'm Brianne West and this has been Now That's What I Call Green.

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