The toxic history of the color green

The toxic history of the color green

The color green is one of the most important colors since it is always associated with the environment. The word green has the same Germanic root as the words “grass” and “grow”. It is the color of living leaves of plants because of the pigment leaves have, the chlorophyll. Fundamentals in Biology will tell you that chlorophyll is the essential component of plants in order for them to produce their own food and oxygen through a process called photosynthesis. In psychology, on the other hand, green signifies renewal, growth, balance, calmness and harmony. However, the truth about the color is that it is not that ecologically responsible and can be damaging to the environment.

Manufacturing color green

It has been known that the color green is not ecological friendly because on how it was made. Journals have shown that it is impossible to dye plastics with the green color or even print green ink without contaminating them. This means that plastics and paper that is colored green cannot undergo recycling or composting because it could contaminate everything in its way. This is due to the difficulty in manufacturing the color that there are certain toxic chemicals added to stabilize it. Chemicals added are chlorine, cobalt, titanium, nickel oxide and zinc oxide. Chemicals such as these can cause cancer and birth defects.

The color green’s historical role

In the Western history of art, artists struggled to create a mixture of the correct shade of green paint. When artists thought they were able to have the right mix, eventually the color fades or even discolored. In addition to that, early green paints are considered to be corrosive that they have the tendency to burn into canvass, wood or paper. Wallpapers and paints that are colored green during the 18th and 19th century were created with the poisonous arsenic. It was also believed by some historians that the poisonous Scheele’s Green, which was in vented in Sweden in 1700’s, have killed Napoleon Bonaparte in 1821. This is due to the release of arsenic fumes from the decaying green and gold wall paper in his cell in St. Helena.

In 1970’s a group of environmental activists resurrected the use of the color and eventually used green as the color of their emblem. This is simply because of the association of the color to nature.

Environmentalists’ love affair with green

The incorporation of the color in environmental activities was believed to start in 1970’s when a group of Canadian environmentalists used a ship to conduct a campaign against nuclear testing in Alaska and called it Greenpeace. It was then that green is associated with everything that is environmental. For example products that whose packaging is colored green suggests that that product is environmental friendly. This concept is still being carried by manufacturing companies and has been a strategy in branding and marketing.