Green Washing

What is this “green” thing anyhows? Just about everyone says they are green or going green. Even Clorox has made the blasted statment. How on earth can we tell who is right and who is wrong? Depends on what you believe “green” is.

To me (I am biased) Green defines living in a way that does no harm to the environment. In other words leave no trace. Ask questions about the products you are about to use, the service you may already use, or the daily habits you have.

For example lets look at the recent craze for bottled drinking water. It takes about 3 gallons of water to create one 12oz bottle of water. Most of the time that drinking water is not filtered. Yup just straight old tap water. But back to the point. The amount of toxic waste and use of water to produce the 12oz package is shameful. This to me, is the epitome of “green washing”. And probably brain washing. It is cheaper and better for the environment to install a water filter in your home and use some of those portable stainless steel H2O bottles.  Additionally how many of these bottles do you see on the roadside on a daily basis? Yuk!

The other major point is when a big chemical company suddenly announces they have gone green. We must ask ourselves the age-old questions; who, what, when, where, how and why? If these are applied (with a little web searching) answers can be found.  For example how have they gone green? If they are still manufacturing dangerous chemicals, how is that going green?

Othe ways to question green-ness can be; Is it considered green to manufacture automobiles?  When did that company or service go green? Why did they decide to go green?  Where is the evidence of going green?
Asking these questions about yourself and the companies you do business with can help clear-up the green washing phenomenon.

To end this rant let me say I am glad more people are aware of the environment. I remember the marches and protests in D.C. in the 70’s.  It wasn’t cool to be Earth friendly. Now that it is I feel somewhat vindicated. And I can eat my alfalfa sprout sandwich with pride!

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