This week, in the wake of recent discoveries of lead paint in toys and contaminated toothpaste, pet food and other products from China, the International Herald Tribune reported that large American toy and food retailers were “stepping up their analysis of imported goods that they sell”.

News coverage of tainted products from China reached a fever pitch in the late spring, with customers (including parents of children who love Thomas the Tank Engine toy trains) demanding companies do something to ensure the safety of the products they sell. As is often the case, it has taken a public outcry (based on investigative reporting) to light a fire under companies.

It is not a new thing that suppliers have been cutting corners on products to meet the growing demand for cheap goods. But the deaths of about 100 people in Panama from tainted Chinese cough medicine, and the deaths of dozens of cats and dogs in the U.S. from melamine-laced pet food made in China, have focused people’s minds.

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Here is a scary example of an ostensibly green initiative - the growing of palm oil for biofuel in Colombia - having very perverse human rights effects.

Indeed, as one observer quoted in the article says, it is “the dark side of biofuel”.

Massacres and paramilitary land seizures behind the biofuel revolution
· Colombian farmers driven out as armed groups profit
· Lucrative ‘green’ crop less risky to grow than coca

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