If You Love This Planet…
OTTAWA—Valentine’s Day may bring thoughts of romance, but according to Sierra Club Canada, it’s also a time to think of the environment and our consumer choices. Although traditional gifts like chocolate and cut flowers can have serious environmental, health and social impacts, fortunately there are organic, fair trade and socially conscious alternatives available across Canada.
“Environmental Activist Helen Caldecott used to open her speeches with, ‘If you love this planet…’ What Sierra Club Canada is saying is if you love someone, and you love the planet, choose Valentine’s gifts with care and respect,” said John Bennett, Executive Director.
So why be concerned when choosing chocolates or flowers? Imported flowers and cocoa beans are often grown using pesticides - many of which are not permitted in Canada - and are harmful to ecosystems and human health, while applied by workers who are often untrained and ill-equipped to protect themselves. Imported flowers can be drenched in pesticides to ensure they are insect-free. In the cocoa trade, some producers continue to use children as slave labour.
On the flip side, many florists carry sustainably-grown cut flowers and roses, and plants in soil must be grown in Canada, under more strict conditions. Fair trade certification ensures that farmers are paid a fair price, workers enjoy decent working standards, and child slavery is not condoned.
“Of course you don’t have to buy something in order to show you care for someone,” says Celeste Côté, National Water Campaigner, “but if you choose to do so, choosing to give fair trade and organic products shows you care not only for the recipient, but also for those across the world working in these industries, as well as the environment. We all deserve to be fairly paid and not exposed to harmful chemicals at work.”
This Valentine’s Day, if you want to give flowers to your loved one, choose a domestically grown plant or perhaps some fair trade organic chocolates. Show them you really love them.
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Contact:
Michael Bernard
Director of Media Relations
Sierra Club Canada
michaelb@sierraclub.ca
(o) 613.241.4611 x230
(c) 613.302.9933
Toll free: 1.888.810.4204
Backgrounder:
Chocolate & Pesticides:
For chocolate from cocoa beans imported into Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) allows for various levels of pesticide residue to be present in the cocoa powder. Below are just a few of the pesticides that can legally contaminate non-organic chocolate, along with some of their health effects.
• Methyl Bromide - prostate cancer, kidney and liver effects, neurological effects
• Pyrethrins - carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity
• Hydrogen Cyanide - acute toxicity, thyroid effects, nerve degeneration
• Naled - central nervous system disruption; headaches, nausea and diarrhea
• Glyphosate - effects on digestive system tissue, genetic damage, effects on reproduction, carcinogen
• Lindane-a pesticide best known for use as a treatment for head lice-is banned in the US for use on food crops but has been found to be a contaminant in some European chocolate.
Chocolate & Child Slavery:
• 200,000 children are forced to work on West African cocoa farms, according to the United Nations Children's Fund
• Cocoa industry reps argue that it's impossible to know which of the 600,000 cocoa farms on the Ivory Coast are using slave labor-some do, some don't
• Boys are sold or tricked into slavery; most are between the ages of 12 and 16, but some are as young as nine; they are regularly beaten and sometimes killed if they try to escape
• Children work as many as 80 to 100 hours a week on cocoa farms
• In 2001, the major chocolate manufacturers halfheartedly agreed to eliminate slave labor on Ivory Coast farms after Congress threatened to make them mark their products "slavery-free" (a test they wouldn't have passed). They later backtracked, saying they would cut child labor in two West African countries by 2008.
• Major chocolate companies continue to purchase Ivory Coast cocoa
Imported, cut flowers:
• Travel long distances by air (Colombia) and have a huge carbon footprint.
• Are heavily treated with pesticides, as the risk of finding one or two insects upon inspection in Canada can mean losing a whole shipment, which is very costly.
• Workers are generally not properly trained or protected when using pesticides.
