All Your Green Blog

I recently received an interesting little bit of junk mail. It's a coupon booklet for "earth-friendly" products. It included such incredible, steaming piles of bovine excrement that I feel compelled to share it with you. Above is an ad for water. This water is contained in disposable plastic bottles. What makes this "earth-friendly"? Oh, well, they use less barely-recyclable petrolium-based plastic in their bottles. About a third less. You know how much plastic I save by using a Klean Kanteen? Around 100% of the plastic of the water bottle. Also, last time I checked, recycling most plastics takes more energy than making new ones. Plastic bottles are a sort of hideous cousin of recyclables. They have no up-side.

Just to give you an idea of how ridiculous this coupon booklet is, here's a summary:

• Pepsi: aluminum cans are recyclable! (so what if it's mostly corn syrup?)
• Miracle Whip: Plastic jars are lighter than glass... so it takes less gas to transport them. (but hard to recycle...)
• Back to Nature Granoloa: No preservatives, artificial flavors. (might be good for you, but that's nearly irrelevant to the earth. Common mistake, it seems...)
• Campbell's Soup: Quote "Our soups are condensed, so our cans are smaller and lighter." (What about the contents? What about the manufacture of the can?)
• Nestle Waters (Arrowhead, etc.): Eco-Shape(tm) bottle uses 30% less plastic. (How about NONE, also, tap water has higher safety regulations than your swill).
• Coca-cola: Recycle cans. (Once again, forget that we use utterly ecologically devastating practices to produce the toxic contents of those cans)
• Clif Bars: Efficient packaging, support organic farming, etc. (ok, so we like these guys. Can't all be as bad as Arrowhead.)
• Tide: Washes good, so you ... um... less water? (Detergents contribute little to the effectiveness of a washer, unless you're using cold water)
• All Detergent With the amusingly blasphemous subtitle that makes the bottle read basically "All Mighty" they're using the "concentrated stuff uses smaller containers" angle like Campbell soup. (My next bottle of arsenic is going to be a 3 ounce concentrated bottle, for health!)

There's more, but I'm just too baffled to bother. Seriously, I must be in the right business, if it's being emulated so much by others. Although I tend to try to be at least remotely honest with myself regarding what I sell. Not everyone seems to have this little ethical requirement, however, as long as the eco-keywords attract buyers.

Promote real eco-friendly products. Don't buy into the bullshit. Buy the good stuff. You know it when you see it, by now.