IP, business stories of Tupperware bankruptcy minimize female marketing pioneer, dangers of plastics

Brownie Wise on Business Week in 1954
via America Comes Alive; © fair use

The Tupperware bankruptcy has been much in the news, though the coverage has underplayed "the rest of the story" in regard to women in business and product liability.

Headlines about the bankruptcy of Tupperware suggest various takeaways for business and law. Most stories highlight the inevitable expiry of novelty in business, with the corollary imperative to innovate (Atlantic, Sept. 20). Legal angles complement coverage with intellectual property lessons on the limited life of patents (Slate) and the problem of genericization in trademark (N.Y. Times). The history and nostalgia of Tupperware is a consistent theme (Atlantic, Apr. 12).

Less often told is the story of women in business. The CBS Evening News Saturday night credited Tupperware founder Earl Tupper with having come up with the Tupperware party as a sales strategy. That's not accurate, except in a "buck stops here" sense. The role of the remarkable Brownie Wise is less often told (mentioned: Atlantic, N.Y. Times). Rachel's Vintage & Retro has the more nuanced inside story. The National Women's History Museum and Smithsonian have more. Wise, from Buford, Georgia, graced the cover of Business Week in 1954 (pictured, via America Comes Alive). PBS recounted:

While Earl Tupper hated the limelight, Brownie Wise loved it. With Tupper's blessing, the company's public relations staff promoted Wise extensively. Female executives were rare, and the strategy worked. As the company grew, Wise was on talk shows, quoted by newspapers, and pictured on the cover of numerous magazines (she was the first woman to make the cover of Business Week). But when the press suggested Wise was responsible for Tupperware's success, and that she could be equally successful selling any product, Earl Tupper grew jealous. Over time, Wise became increasingly high-handed, and she was less patient with Tupper's micro-management and unpredictable temper. In 1958, Earl Tupper unceremoniously and abruptly fired her, booting her from the multi-million dollar company she had helped build; she held no company stock and was given just one year's salary.

Journalist Bob Kealing published a book about Wise if you want to go all in. Life of the Party (2016) followed up Kealing's Tupperware, Unsealed (2008). The Takeaway at WNYC interviewed Kealing in 2016.

With regard to women in business, by the way, CBS Sunday Morning just featured GM CEO Mary Barra, who appears to be going strong in the role ten years on. I remember when Jon Stewart on The Daily Show made fun of GM's ham-fisted introduction of a first female CEO ("a car gal, an auto dame, a jalopy broad"). It seemed that Barra was practically set up to fail amid GM's embarrassing ignition-switch recall.

Phillip Pessar via Flickr CC BY 2.0

Further in the vein of product liability, another angle on Tupperware that gets little play lies at the intersection of tort law and environmental protection. Stories of Tupperware tend to hail Tupper's inventiveness in converting DuPont's wartime development of polyethylene to post-war market ubiquity. But in the last decade, revelations of risky chemical seepage from microwaved containers did untold damage to a business built on plastic food storage.

BPA is just one chemical contaminant from plastics. Its use in manufactured products has spawned EU regulation and American litigation over baby bottles and activewear, as well as consumer protection litigation over "BPA-free" green-washing. Tupperware stopped using BPA in 2010 and developed a purportedly microwave-safe line of products under the brand name "Tupperwave" (not to be confused with Australian musician Dean Terry). But the safety of any plastic in the microwave remains uncertain. And microwave ovens notwithstanding, there's plenty of justified public concern over microplastic waste in the environment, animals, and people. 

So maybe Tupperware was always destined for only finite fame. Or maybe it will reinvent itself like Teflon, another DuPont invention that seems likely to survive an accountability assault.

Unregulated, 'Dark Waters' chemicals persist in cookware, clothing, sickening people, environment

Comedian and social critic John Oliver's latest top story on HBO's Last Night concerned PFAS, the artificial chemical substances behind non-stick coatings on cookware and incorporated into food wrappings and textiles, known to be highly dangerous to human health.

The stuff persists, Oliver explained, in new, unregulated, and unlabeled formulations, despite a horrific track record of illness, from obesity to terminal cancer, and environmental damage.  Oliver related recent history by quoting parts of the landmark New York Times Magazine feature by Nathaniel Rich in 2016, "The Lawyer Who Became Dupont's Worst Nightmare."  That piece inspired the unsettling 2019 feature film Dark Waters.  Oliver also excerpted a 2018 documentary, The Devil We Know.

PFAS, a "forever chemical" that persists in the environment for thousands of years, is now in the blood of virtually all Americans.  Food wrappings and clothing are our greatest risk, Oliver explained, and there is no labeling to warn us.

I just caught this on a spot-check. Adiós, sartén.

In my household, since Dark Waters brought the issue to our attention, we've exclusively adopted silicone tools to use with non-stick-coated cookware.  And at the first sign of scratching, out goes the pan or pot: a pricey luxury we are lucky to be able to afford, while we only worsen the environmental problem.  We have lately been investigating non-stick alternatives, and Oliver has ignited the gas burner under us to get moving on that.

PFAS is in the water supply, too, sometimes in alarming doses, 70 parts per trillion (ppt) being the EPA's recommended maximum concentration in drinking water.  Oliver pointed viewers to a "PFAS Contamination" interactive map created by the NGO Environmental Working Group.  The map is intriguing and informative to play around with, as it compiles water quality data from around the country.

But the most frightening takeaway from the map is the data it does not contain.  Data collection is hit or miss.  The closest results to me in East Bay Rhode Island come from a small school serving only 40 persons (4 ppt), a Massachusetts water district serving 13,627 persons (20 ppt), and the Pawtucket (R.I.) water system, serving 99,200 persons and reporting a PFAS excess at 74 ppt.

My local water authority, Bristol County (BCWA), says my water rather comes from Providence, which is not on the EWG data map, and where water quality reports appear to be missing.  It further undermines my confidence in the system that BCWA has been wanting to build a pipeline to Pawtucket, which offers, BCWA says, "another source of excellent quality water."

At last, Europe is moving ahead with regulation; I hope that will spur the United States to follow suit.

[UPDATE, 17 Oct. 2021:  Providence Water sent me a copy of the 2020 Water Quality Report in the mail. As anticipated by Oliver, there is no mention in the report of PFAS.]