Bogus Biobased Standard?

"It's not meaningless," claims Kathleen Merrigan about the USDA's new label for bio-based materials. "People like me," adds the deputy secretary in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), can use these labels to "shop purposefully" for products made from farms and forests instead of fossil fuels.

To reach what Merrigan calls a "sweet spot", the USDA has adopted a voluntary labeling system for bio-based materials that's modeled after the well-known Energy Star program. But some bioplastics companies and environmental groups complain that the new label leaves a bad taste in mouths.

Under the USDA's new standard, consumer products such as lip balms and household cleaners can be derived from less than 25% renewables and still be "USDA certified biobased". Metabolix, an industry leader in bioplastics, has complained that reducing this standard to below 50% could result in "greenwashing" that undermines the new label's credibility with the American public.

Environmental groups are also unhappy because the Department of Agriculture failed to assess the life cycle of biobased products. Crops such as corn are energy-intensive to produce, and require machinery that runs on fossil fuels. For its part, the USDA plans to perform physical tests to determine the origins of a consumer product's organic materials.

Is criticism of the USDA's new standard fair?

Source: New York Times