You may have seen Iceland’s palm oil advertisement online, that was banned from being shown on TV this year. You may have heard of palm oil being in over 50% of our daily-use products. You may have also seen an RSPO or Green Palm symbol printed on your food packaging at some point before.
But if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, here is a quick recap:
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil that is found in the majority of products on our supermarket shelves, including soap, laundry detergent and in many processed foods. Due to its versatility, it’s used as a preservative to extend the shelf life of products and as a biofuel. The humid climates of Indonesia and Malaysia’s rainforests provide the perfect conditions for palm oil plantations to grow. Due to the efficiency to produce palm oil, there is a huge demand for it. In 2017, the EU had used 7.7 million tons of it – 61 percent towards biofuel, power and heat, and 39 percent of it towards food products, animal feed and chemical products.
What are the pros of palm oil?
When it comes to the oil palm tree, it is considered the most efficient oil crop in the world. Palm oil uses the least amount of land to grow, taking up 0.23 percent of the planet’s rainforest - in comparison to sunflower oil which uses 0.51 percent and soybean oil using a huge 2.14 percent. Although palm oil uses the least amount of land, it provides the highest yield of oil. To put it into perspective, it takes up 10 times more land to produce the same amount of soybean oil compared to palm oil.
Unlike other oil crops that need replanting year after year, oil palm trees have the average lifespan of 25-30 years, so they’re able to keep producing their fruits to be made into oil.
On our planet, there are roughly 7 billion people living on it right now and it is estimated that there will be 9 billion people by 2050. To ensure that everyone gets access to food supplies, industries need to think of ways to mass produce more palm oil whilst trying to conserve our natural habitats. So, it makes sense to manufacture palm oil rather than other oils because it takes up less land space and also produces the most oil.
One of the ways that industries are showing their awareness to the mass production of palm oil is by being associated with the RSPO. In 2004, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was established in order to promote the production and consumption of sustainable palm oil. Sustainable means that the palm oil has been sourced legally in order to maintain the rainforest’s ecological balance. In 2017, according to the RSPO, 21 percent of the global supply of palm oil is now certified.
What are the cons of palm oil?
As mentioned previously, there is a growing demand for palm oil, which puts pressure on countries like Indonesia or Malaysia to expand their plantation fields. To fulfil this, irreplaceable rainforests are being knocked down or burnt to make room for more oil palm trees to be planted. According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the equivalent to 300 football fields of rainforest are destroyed every hour to make room for more palm oil plantations.
Although some companies have switched to using sustainable palm oil, illegal deforestation is still a major concern. Unsustainable palm oil plantations have been linked to the destruction of endangered species habitat’s such as orangutans.
Another issue with palm oil is that, due to the deforestation of rainforests, it creates new road networks for hunters to access wild animals, where they are captured and sold as pets or killed for body parts. In 2016, just 45,000 orangutans were left in Borneo and it’s estimated that they will become extinct in the next 24 years.
When trying to avoid buying items that contain palm oil, it can be a challenging task. Many products that use palm oil aren’t labelled clearly enough. Palm oil can be listed as many different names on the ingredients list such as Palmate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Glyceryl and more! It can even be labelled as just ‘vegetable oil’.
As you can see, there are various pros and cons with palm oil. However, there are many ways in which you can help make a change to our planet’s future. That doesn’t mean you have to cut out palm oil completely from your lifestyle but being more aware of the issue is a good place to begin. Now that you have read this article, here are a few tips to start you off on an eco-friendlier journey:
- Keep an eye out for the RSPO label or Green Palm symbol on products.
- If a food product has ‘vegetable oil’ in it and the saturated fat content is near to/above 50 percent, it’s likely that the vegetable oil is actually palm oil.
- Cook from scratch so you’ll know exactly what ingredients go into your food.
- Inform others on what you have learnt. Big companies want us to think that biofuels are good for the planet. They portray that they’re more environmentally conscious than they actually are. This is called Greenwashing.
- Whenever you can, leave the car at home and walk or cycle. Not only will you save petrol, but you’ll also be using less biofuel, as it became mandatory to blend biofuels into vehicle fuels since 2009.
- Download apps on your phone such as Happy Orangutan, to show you which products in the supermarket contain palm oil and if they are sustainably sourced.
- Cut down on eating processed foods such as crisps, biscuits and chocolate. Not only will your body thank you for it, but so will the environment.
- There are many recipes online to make your own soap and toothpaste, that are easy and just as effective.