I bought some lemon myrtle soap the other day. At home I noticed ‘Contains NO Animal Products’ written on the side of the box, along with ‘delights and vitalises’ and ‘natural freshness’, amongst the pretty symbols. A closer inspection was required. The spiel on the back described the lemon myrtle tree as being a Queensland rainforest species that grows to about 8 meters (sic). ‘Its elegant dark green leaves are intensely aromatic. The extraordinary oil is extracted by steam distillation…’
I love trees. By now I am thinking what a splendid-sounding, majestic tree, and how did they get the leaves that were involved in making the soap I bought. The box doesn’t state whether the lemon myrtle trees are farmed or whether they’re native forest trees that are chopped down, so I can only presume it’s the latter not the former. Clearly whoever wrote the box was more concerned with appealing to vegetarians and vegans than tree lovers. If they appreciated native trees themselves, the need to state that the leaves were obtained from farmed trees, would have been obvious.
It gets worse. Guess what’s up the top of the ingredients list? Palm oil. The third ingredient listed is palm kernel. What’s wrong with buying palm oil products? Right now, most of the world’s destruction of equatorial rainforests occurs because more cleared land is wanted to grow oil palms. This is especially the case in SE Asia – particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, PNG etc.
So my fancy soap contains no products from domesticated cattle grazing on native grasslands in harmony with native wildlife. Instead the major ingredient in my soap is derived from a crop which is responsible for massive ecological destruction – destroying habitat for native animals and plants, large and small.
Next time I’ll be paying more attention to what I’m buying and I suggest others do likewise. It seems very obvious that it is far better to farm domestic breeds of animals in a sustainable and humane fashion, than permanently remove vital habitat for rare and threatened species.
Avoid purchasing anything containing palm oil.
Tags: Veganism & Vegetarianism, Conservation and the environment