About Palm Oil
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Without knowing it, most Australians use products every day that contain palm oil –food, toiletries and detergents, and are thereby bringing
about the destruction of fragile ecosystems in subtropical Malaysia, Indonesia, Africa and South America.
There is nothing inherently wrong with palm oil itself. The problem lies in the fact that large tracts of native forests are being cleared and burned in order to grow palm monocultures to satisfy the enormous worldwide demand for the oil. In addition to the serious contribution to greenhouse gases and loss of biodiversity due to land clearing, the plantations are often heavily treated with pesticides, further affecting fragile ecosystems.
Of particular concern is the widespread destruction of native forest in Sumatra where the Sumatran orangutan is predicted to be extinct in the wild within the next 10 years. Also at risk are the Sumatran tiger, the Asian elephant and Asian rhinoceros, in addition to numerous lesser known plant and animal species.
So, what products contain all this palm oil we are consuming? Palm oil is used in many baked goods, snacks, chocolate, margarine, soap, shampoo, and lipstick, in domestic and industrial detergents, and it is being considered as a biofuel. In soaps it is often labelled ‘sodium palmate’ or ‘sodium palm kernelate’, indicating palm or palm kernel oil.
It is important to remember that any ingredient labelled ‘vegetable oil’ may in fact be palm oil, as current labelling legislation does not require the type of vegetable oil to be specified. Likewise, many detergents and shampoo ingredients derived from palm oil may be labelled simply ‘of vegetable/plant origin’. Nearly all bar soaps contain palm oil as it is a cheap way to get hard, long lasting bars.
Below are a couple of websites that show products that contain or are free of palm oil:
Here at Mokosh, neither palm oil nor palm oil-derived ingredients are used in any of our products. Our bar soaps contain virgin cocoa butter rather than palm oil to give them hardness and longevity. An additional benefit of cocoa butter in soap is its luxurious creamy lather and wonderful skin-conditioning properties. Most importantly, be secure in the knowledge that you are not contributing to destruction of incredibly important ecosystems.
