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Lodge Logic 12″ Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Skillet
In this post I’m going to discuss the criteria for what makes a product green and then apply those criteria to the Lodge Logic Cast Iron Pre-Seasoned Skillet or frying pan.
When looking at green issues it is very easy to be one dimensional. It is the mainstream media that does it. The news bangs on and on about something until we all believe it and are regurgitating these media sound bites like they were our own ideas.
One of the big media ideas about environmentalism is that it is all about sustainability. Well sustainability is a very important concept. If we cannot make a business from a resource which is sustainable then sooner or later that resource is going to run out and then the business will collapse for the want of raw materials. A good example of the importance of sustainability is forestry management. If we only cut down trees selectively in a forest then the forest will continue to survive and flourish as a living eco-system and a habitat for wild flora and fauna. If on the other hand we clear cut huge swathes of a forest then eventually the forest will die from soil erosion and the pollution caused by pesticide wielding agriculturalists looking to make a quick buck.
The trouble is that not all our needs can be realistically discussed in terms of sustainability as it is commonly understood. I’m a big big fan of bamboo and hemp but I understand that these materials are useless to make skillets.
Does that mean there is no such thing as an environmentally friendly frying pan? I think the answer is no. And the reason is that we should consider sustainability as well as other key environmental aspects when judging the eco-friendly credentials of a product. I recently found the site Green Gear and I love the way the authors have tried to be empirical in their judgments of the greenness or otherwise of a product. The site identifies five areas worthy of green points.
1) First up is Fixed Eco-Benefit. This is about the production process and the ‘downstream’ of a product. Has the product under scrutiny been made with less damage to the environment than other similar products? For example, a pencil that has been made from re-cycled wood has a huge fixed eco-benefit compared with a pencil made from trees chopped down expressly for the purpose of making pencils. Or it could be that one product was made in a more environmentally manner than another. For example two loaves of bread. One made from a mill that grinds the corn using electrical equipment and the other made from corn ground using hydro-power from a watermill. The corn for both loaves could be identical but only the bread using hydro power has a fixed eco-benefit.
The other aspect of fixed eco-benefit is the consequences of using a product and the disposal of the product after it has delivered its commercial usefulness; in other words, its downstream. A good example of this type of environmental benefit is to be found in the area of laundry detergents. The average detergent needed petroleum and other nasty chemicals to be made but the real eco-impact is felt when the detergent is used. Water sources are polluted and the plastic bottle is another potential headache for the planet that won’t go away by itself anytime in the next one hundred years. In stark contrast is a product like Seventh Generation Laundry Detergent in a cardboard box. After the washing is done the dirty water doesn’t pollute and the box the detergent came in can be composted.
2) The second Green Gear’s category is called Variable Eco Benefit. This category is about identifying products that are more efficient than other similar products on the market. A good example of this is the Oxygenics 80227 Handheld Shower that uses 2.5 gallons of water per minute compared to a standard shower head that delivers 5 gallons per minute.
3) Third is Quality and Innovation. This is as the name suggests is about making big improvements in the quality of a type of product. For example, the energy saving CFL light bulb that lasts seven times as long as a standard incandescent light bulb. The other half of this category is innovation. This is all about thinking outside of the box and providing a product that does what it does in a new and revolutionary manner. For example, hybrid cars that use batteries to drastically reduce the amount of petrol a car engine consumes.
Sadly, both of these examples score highly on the quality and innovation front but poorly on the fixed ecological benefit front. CFL lights contain mercury which is already having a catastrophic impact on marine life. Only a CFL light, in my opinion, that is guaranteed to be disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner has any right whatsoever to be called ‘green’. As for cars, they require so many resources to make and wear out so quickly and even if they use less petrol are still using petrol that I have a hard time thinking of hybrid cars as being especially ‘green’. The point is that we need an empirical way of judging the greenness of a product and we need to identify ways to analyse the environmental pros and cons of a product.
4) The forth category is price and value. This is common sense. A product that delivers a fixed eco benefit is useless to the average consumer if it costs twice as much as another product that does the same thing. Ever since economics was established as a serious field of study we have all come to understand how important price is. If a customer cannot perceive the price of a product as being ‘good value’ they are not going to buy it if they have a choice. Of course if you are a millionaire or you are dealing in huge quantities then your priorities might be different; but, for the rest of us, we have limited money and a limited need. A good example of what I’m getting out is the White Goat Toilet Paper Making Machine. It turns shredded paper into toilet paper. Not a bad idea. Well not a bad idea until you discover that it costs $100,000 to purchase and that the cost per roll of toilet paper made from the White Goat is $0.60. If you bulk buy at Treecycle Recycled you can get a roll of toilet paper for $0.75. That means the machine needs to make 666,666.6 rolls of toilet paper to just break even! Factor in the maintenance for this monster of a machine and you are probably looking at a product with a minus point green credential.
5) The fifth category is like a bonus point. If a product fulfills the above four criteria and it is about to become a hot consumer item then it gains extra credit. This category seems a bit frivolous to me but maybe should be taken as a indicator of possible future trends in environmentally friendly consumption.
6) I would like to add another category to Green Gears excellently thought out criteria, and that category is to do with us, the people. We are part of the planet too. We may be the main trouble makers but the health of the planet includes the health of the people living on it. Thus, if a product is made under the auspices of a fair trade program then it deserves a ‘green’ recognition. And conversely, if your bamboo product was made from bamboo harvested by an exploited Chinese farmer then I feel the environmental benefits of that product are ambiguous to say the least. Another example of the importance of this category is found in coffee. If a company raves on about the organic shade grown virtues of its beans but doesn’t mention a bean about the workers who harvested the coffee then you can presume that this company is practicing a type of eco-hypocrisy which is sadly all to evident in today’s market place.
And so to come to the question that I posed at this beginning of this post – can a frying pan be a green product? Well I think it can if you consider the example of the Lodge Foundry and their cast iron frying pan. Iron is not a renewable resource. There are limited amounts of iron bauxite in the earth and to extract the iron and make it into a frying pan requires a lot of energy. But the incredibly long lifespan of a cast iron frying pan gives it a fixed eco-benefit. Basically if properly maintained a cast iron frying pan can last for generations. Another eco-benefit is that it doesn’t need to be washed with detergents. Only rinsed in water and scrubbed and then oiled. This is unlike Teflon frying pans which start to lose their non-stick coating in under a year. All the added chemicals to make the non-stick Teflon surface are believed by some to be the cause of the chemicals such as PFOs, PFOAs and PFCs being found in a growing number of people’s blood streams. Cast iron is safer to dispose of than Teflon coated cooking equipment. On top of these fixed eco benefits there is the particular eco-contributions that Lodge MFG are providing to the community where their foundry is based. In 1991 Lodge MFG replaced its cupola melting system with a more environmentally friendly induction melt system. The company recycles all its cardboard. The company helped draft a beneficial use policy for non-hazardous foundry sand. The policy was adopted by the Tennessee Department of Environment in April 1996 and is an example of industry and government working together for the good of the environment. Furthermore, the company spends money to ensure the health of the nearby river and has a tree planting policy on its campus. In short the company is trying to offset and minimize the damage its foundry does to the environment. Finally there’s the benefit that cast iron skillets are cheaper normally than equivalent size Teflon skillets. For these reasons I believe cast iron frying pans or skillets made by Lodge MFG have the green advantage over Teflon skillets or frying pans.