Environmentalists Criticize Firm’s Educational Material

Environmentalists in California and four other states charged Thursday that free educational pamphlets distributed by Procter & Gamble Co. to public schools around the country amount to “deceptive trade practices” and misrepresent the environmental damage associated with P&G; products such as disposable diapers.

Californians Against Waste, a Sacramento-based environmental group, and environmental groups in New York, Minnesota, Washington and North Carolina called on a task force of 11 state attorneys general to investigate the materials.

In a letter to California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the group asked for a “careful review” under state deceptive-trade practices law “due to the company’s expressly stated intent to influence consumer product choices.”

The P&G; educational package, called “Decision: Earth,” is a four-lesson teaching program aimed at grades 7 through 12 and includes data and suggested classroom exercises about the environmental life cycle of consumer products, as well as about timber cutting and mining.

“We’re very disappointed that we’re being faulted,” P&G; spokeswoman Kelly A. Anchrum said. “I guess the best testimony for ‘Decision: Earth’ is from teachers who keep calling us to use it.”

But Sandra Jerabek, executive director of Californians Against Waste, said a lesson about disposable and cloth diapers relies on data from a “disputed life cycle analysis supporting the use of disposable diapers. Other analyses presenting a far different picture are never mentioned.”

The interstate task force of attorneys general has been evaluating marketing practices that make environmental claims about consumer goods.

A spokesman in Lungren’s office said the matter will be reviewed. In most public school systems, including California’s, the use of such materials is ultimately left to the discretion of individual teachers.