The Color Green Isn't Actually "Green"

The color green isn’t as green as it seems, according to the New York Times, which reports that the chemicals typically used to pigment plastic or paper with shades of green are actually toxic and harmful to the environment. So harmful, in fact, that green-colored plastic and paper cannot be recycled or composted safely.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” said Michael Braungart, a German chemist and co-author of Cradle to Cradle, the best-selling sustainable design book. “The color green can never be green, because of the way it is made. It’s impossible to dye plastic green or to print green ink on paper without contaminating them.”

Revered throughout history as a symbol for pristine nature and paradise, the color may also owe some of its reverence to its lack of attainability. From the Italian Renaissance to 18th-century Romanticism, artists have struggled to reproduce accurate shades of green paint. Even today, the difficulty in manufacturing the color means that toxic substances are often used to stabilize it.

For instance, Pigment Green 7, the most common shade of green used in plastics and paper, contains chlorine, some forms of which can cause cancer and birth defects. Pigment Green 36 includes potentially hazardous bromide atoms as well as chlorine, and Pigment Green 50 might contain the deadliest mix of all — a soup of cobalt, titanium, nickel and zinc oxide.

But modern industry isn’t all to blame; green paints and dyes have a long history of toxicity. Early green paints were so corrosive that they often burned into canvas, paper and wood. Green wallpaper made with arsenic may even be to blame for Napoleon Bonaparte’s death in 1821, who passed away in a damp cell at Saint Helena surrounded by rotting green and gold walls.

The unfortunate irony is that while green has come to symbolize a reverence for nature, our futile attempts to replicate the color synthetically are harming the environment. As companies print more and more green paraphernalia in their efforts to advertise green, environmentally friendly products, they may be increasing the production of and demand for these toxic mixtures.

“Getting the right tones of artificial green is always difficult, and there’s often something disturbing about the result,” said the Dutch product designer Hella Jongerius. “Whereas all shades of green look beautiful in nature.”

Perhaps there’s a redeeming symbolism in the color after all: that preserving nature’s beauty can only be accomplished through the preservation of nature itself. No amount of industrial ingenuity, artificial substitutes, or human management can suffice for what is truly, naturally green.

Read more: Do Good, Green, Home, Reduce, Recycle & Reuse, color, dye, green, toxic

By Bryan Nelson, MNN

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Sheri P.

8:25PM PDT on Jul 16, 2011

Hmmm, what irony! Is there no way to make a more organic, natural green?

send a green star

Ruth R.

5:54PM PDT on Aug 11, 2010

Organic green paint, and other colors of paint all from all natural rocks and plants! the three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue, and that may be all one needs to create the other colors.
Some person is probably selling this Organic Paint on-line somewhere.

5:51PM PDT on Aug 11, 2010

Some person has an article on making paint from food, rocks, herbs, natural plants, somewhere -- I think that is was on Care2. Thank You for the this article..

5:48PM PDT on Aug 11, 2010

Brittany H.

10:37AM PDT on Aug 11, 2010

What an interesting dilemma, I guess this just means if you love green you need to go to nature.

Janice P.

6:46AM PDT on Aug 11, 2010

Such irony!

Philippa P.

8:44PM PDT on Aug 10, 2010

Huh! Who would have thought?

Lyn R.

2:05PM PDT on Aug 10, 2010