Out of step?

Yes, that's right: environmentally-friendly grenades. According to a story in World Science (Earth-friendly grenades proposed), mining of copper for grenades is environmentally damaging. Even worse, apparently, is that detonating the grenades means that the copper cannot be recycled. The researchers, from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, suggest that replacing copper by plastic would be "greener". So that's OK, then: lob a grenade and save the planet. Perhaps plastic grenades will get a Greenpeace seal of approval (as long as they're produced from renewable resources, of course); in time, use of copper-based munitions may be regarded as a war crime.

Is it just me, or is this work rather missing the point? Grenades are a rather unsophisticated product of our creative ability to kill each other easily. Where does environmentalism come in to this? Is this just one more rather macabre illustration that environmentalism is the new religion?