Welcome to the Dollhouse

Don’t buy Kimberly-Clark’s latest ruse 2

If a huge coal power plant goes next door and sets up a cute little boutique collection of five solar panels, have your basic feelings about that giant coal power plant changed? Probably not. After all, you’re reading Grist.

But what if said coal company releases advertisements announcing that they’ve “gone solar,” complete with misleading close-up pics of those cute solar panels? Enough people might fall for it to make the ads worthwhile.

Call it the cute little dollhouse effect: a nasty company builds a cute, green dollhouse version of their house, takes misleading pics suggesting that the dollhouse is the real house, and then declares itself a cute little green company.

Ladies and Gentlemen, gargantuan loggovore Kimberly-Clark has built itself a cute little dollhouse!

The world’s largest manufacturer of tissue products, Kimberly-Clark continues to clearcut Canada’s Boreal forest to make their flagship Kleenex brand tissue. It contains no recycled content. Zero. Donut. Greenpeace has been on the case for a number of years, running a markets campaign highlighting the fact that Kimberly-Clark is wiping away ancient forests to make Kleenex—which is more useful than most junk mail, but only for a split second.

Scott NaturalsNatural, or just another faker?scottcommonsense.comThe company’s new Naturals line of products—released under their “Scott” brand name—is a clear acknowledgement of the impact of Greenpeace’s campaign, but also a classic example of the cute little dollhouse effect. It’s like a cleaner, greener Mini-Me, which while cute and ostensibly good, does not change the wholly unimpressive state of the parent brand.

The Naturals line amply demonstrates that Kimberly-Clark can make a high-quality tissue with recycled content. That’s great to finally see. But Greenpeace’s recent tissue guide gave all of the Naturals products an “avoid” rating because their levels of post-consumer recycled content still fall below recommended levels.

Kimberly-Clark has no trouble with innovation—if they can make an anti-viral tissue product, for god’s sake, they can make Kleenex with 100 percent post-consumer recycled content. But Seventh Generation’s and Cascades’ entire product lines still outdo Kimberly-Clark’s best.

And though Kimberly-Clark chooses not to, other companies make the grade. To see how Kimberly-Clark fails to stack up against truly sustainable options, check out the guide. View the kind of destruction that results in a box of Kleenex here.

And while Kimberly-Clark wants you to look at dollhouses and other relatively meaningless playthings, keep your eyes on the real company.

 

 

 

Ginger Cassady is a Forest Campaigner for ForestEthics, where she heads up the Do Not Mail Campaign to establish a national Do Not Mail Registry.

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  1. atreyger Posted 11:47 am
    13 Apr 2009

    So, this seems misplaced. While I understand that some people, especially of the type to have a first name like Ginger, are extremely opinionated about things they do not know very much about, I do not understand why they use their opinions as truths. Dude, that's like... your opinion, man.I actually fully agree that there is no reason to use 100% virgin fiber, but the fact is, paper cannot be made with 100% post-consumer recycled content. Toilet paper can, but it will be of inferior quality. I am not sure about tissues, but I would assume that if tissues were 100% recycled, they would fall apart in your hand with a sneeze.Furthermore, touching campaign about boreal forests, but judging by the size of the logs in the youtube video, they are no older than 80-100 years of age, plus no forester in his right mind would want to sell a high quality sawlog (read: older than 100 years old) for pulpwood. So, unless you consider your grandparents as being ancient, your statement is just full of umm, excrement. These are not 'ancient' forests, and to be honest, I am not even sure what an 'ancient' forest is. After formally looking through several textbooks (I knew it to begin with, but these are the textbooks: general bio, general ecology, forest ecosystems, silviculture), not one of these contains the word 'ancient' anywhere with any relevance to forests. I think the word that you are striving for is 'old-growth'.So, like I said: misplaced and full of holes. I am not an apologist for Kimberly-Clark, but know your case and your reasoning as to how you go about your case. Which, in my opinion, is going to be full of holes, unless you educate yourself from a neutral standpoint.

    Permalink

  2. atreyger Posted 11:50 am
    13 Apr 2009

    So, this seems misplaced. While I understand that some people, especially of the type to have a first name like Ginger, are extremely opinionated about things they do not know very much about, I do not understand why they use their opinions as truths. Dude, that's like... your opinion, man.I actually fully agree that there is no reason to use 100% virgin fiber, but the fact is, paper cannot be made with 100% post-consumer recycled content. Toilet paper can, but it will be of inferior quality. I am not sure about tissues, but I would assume that if tissues were 100% recycled, they would fall apart in your hand with one sneeze.Furthermore, touching campaign about boreal forests, but judging by the size of the logs in the youtube video, they are no older than 80-100 years of age, plus no forester in his right mind would want to sell a high quality sawlog (read: older than 100 years old) for pulpwood. So, unless you consider your grandparents as being ancient, your statement is just full of umm, excrement. These are not 'ancient' forests, and to be honest, I am not even sure what an 'ancient' forest is. After formally looking through several textbooks (I knew it to begin with, but these are the textbooks: general bio, general ecology, forest ecosystems, silviculture), not one of these contains the word 'ancient' anywhere with any relevance to forests. I think the word that you are striving for is 'old-growth'.So, like I said: misplaced and full of holes. I am not an apologist for Kimberly-Clark, but know your case and your reasoning as to how you go about your case. Which, in my opinion, is going to be full of holes, unless you educate yourself from a neutral standpoint.

    Permalink

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