'Green' arms the new killing trend

News Limited
Sep. 17, 2006

BRITISH arms manufacturer BAE Systems is designing "environmentally friendly" weapons, including "reduced lead" bullets, "reduced smoke" grenades and rockets with fewer toxins, The Sunday Times said.

Other initiatives include developing armoured vehicles with lower carbon emissions, safer and more sustainable artillery and even recycling or composting waste explosives, the newspaper added.

"Weapons are going to be used and when they are, we try to make them as safe for the user as possible, to limit the collateral damage and to impact as little as possible on the environment," Debbie Allen, BAE Systems' director of corporate social responsibility, was quoted as saying.

But Symon Hill, from Campaign Against Arms Trade, described the policy as "laughable".

"BAE is determined to try to make itself look ethical but they make weapons to kill people and it's utterly ridiculous to suggest they are environmentally friendly," he told the newspaper.

BAE Systems' policy is reportedly endorsed by Britain's Ministry of Defence, which defended the concept of "green munitions" as not a contradiction in terms. The US Army already has its own sustainability website.