Posted 28th June 2001

Green Bullets - Yeah Right

Just when you thought you might have heard everything, something surprises you. In the last few years, the product marketers learned that if you call something "green," you can gain access to an ever growing market of consumers who are concerned about the environment. The definition of what makes a product green, however, has remained, to say the least, ambiguous. The term is being applied to products, processes, and people, but possibly the strangest and most ironic use of the term comes from the U.S. Army which has been working to develop the "green bullet" since 1994.

A green bullet is not designed to kill less or to be less painful. A green bullet is a lead free bullet. U.S. newspapers didn't appear to see the irony of the green designation for a bullet when they covered the story extensively in May. Other nations did, as is shown by the "West Australian" newspaper's headline for the story that read "Green bullets not so people-friendly." The Army has spent about $12 million so far to make a more environmentally friendly 5.56 mm bullet for the M-16 rifle, a weapon issued to every Army infantry soldier. An estimated 200 million rounds are fired each year from this weapon by all soldiers in training. Urban sprawl is bringing civilians to the property line of military facilities that used to be quite isolated.

Along with the civilians come their environmental laws. "We want to be good stewards of the environment," said Army spokeswoman Karen Baker to the Associated Press in May. "As the Army tries to balance its testing and training mission with its requirement to comply with environmental regulations ... we are pushing already severely constrained resources to the breaking point," Maj. Gen. R.L. Van Antwerp told a Senate hearing earlier this year. After all, he said, "The primary mission of the United States Army is to fight and win in armed conflict." Of the Pentagon's $296 billion budget, a mere $4.3 billion is spent on environmental activities. Lead from bullets of soldiers, hunters, and other gun users has been wreaking havoc in the environment for decades. Birds and other wildlife by the millions ingest lead shot from hunters' shotguns and suffer lingering, painful deaths from lead poisoning. Humans suffer too. Those who eat wildlife with lead in their systems will accumulate lead in their own bodies.

Humans at shooting ranges around the world are also showing the effects of lead poisoning as they breathe air filled with lead. They may unwittingly take home to their families lead in the soil from those ranges. "It's very likely that every one of the 3,200 outdoor firing ranges in the U.S. is so highly contaminated with lead that a massive cleanup effort would be required to make it safe for any other industrial or residential use," said Environmental Working Group (EWG) research director Jane Houlihan. A study by the EWG released earlier this year found that that outdoor firing ranges put more lead into the environment than many other major industrial sectors in the U.S. Millions of pounds of lead have leached into the Earth, poisoning groundwater and upsetting ecosystem delicate balances.

The armed forces, historically exempt from many environmental regulations, have settled on tungsten to replace the lead in M-16 bullets, a move the Army says will eliminate soil contamination by 2005 when the new bullet will have replaced the old lead ones. That appears safer at least until we discover the currently unknown effects that tungsten may have on the environment. The lead in bullets is only a part of the environmental problem they create. Chemicals used for sealing, waterproofing, painting the bullet and propelling the slug are toxic, and some are cancer causing. The 5.56 mm bullet being replaced accounts for only half the small caliber ammunition used annually. Troops shoot another 200 million rounds of lead based 7.62 mm and 9 mm bullets and even more mortars, artillery and other large ammunition during training.

The latest victim of this deadly lead poisoning is the California condor. Brought to the brink of extinction from hunting, lead poisoning, and other human activities, a captive breeding program started in 1982 in Los Angeles and San Diego which has resulted in 56 birds flying free in the wild. But lead is once again taking its toll. Four of the birds in the wild have died in the last year from lead poisoning. Since 1997, 13 birds have required elaborate drug therapy to remove the lead from their systems. It is believed that they are feeding on carcasses of animals killed by gunfire, swallowing the lead pellets and bullet fragments. More than 40 condors have died since scientists began releasing them into the wild nine years ago. Birds are being affected by lead on a massive scale. As of February 4, more than 176 trumpeter swans have been picked up dead or dying on the ponds they use in northern Washington state.

It takes only three or four lead pellets to cause lead poisoning in a swan. Lead is a soft metal that is ground down easily in the gizzard of a bird. It then enters the blood stream quite rapidly. Lead shotgun shells used for hunting contain about 280 lead pellets. A hunter usually fires five or six shells for every bird that is hit. Only a few of the pellets actually hit the bird. The rest, often more than 1,000 pellets, fall to the ground or into the water. For years, duck hunters left about 6,000 tons of lead shot annually in United States ponds, lakes and rivers before the US Fish and Wildlife Service banned its use in waterfowl hunting. Lead shot is still used to hunt other kinds of game birds. People who fish often attach lead weights to their fishing lines to sink the hooks and bait. These weights are lost in vast numbers, contributing hundreds more tons of lead to lakes and waterways.

Hundreds of tons of lead sinkers and jigs are lost in waters every year. The widespread death of so many birds from lead poisoning is anindicator that lead is deeply imbedded in our planet's ecosystems. As Rachel Carson so dramatically pointed out, what affects birds and other wildlife affects us as well. Lead is even found in candy bar wrappers in the amount of seven grams per kilogram, and it is found in colored sports trading cards packaged with gum. We have to get the lead out, now. Maybe the military can spend some of its billions and clean up more of its messes instead of building new weapons that are obsolete before they leave the factory. And for those who are trying to "green" a violent and dangerous hobby that kills and celebrates power over the natural world, how about taking up baseball, stamp collecting or jewelry making instead? .