What is Greenwash?

Posted on 21 Nov 2022

The truth is that at the end of every day the pool attendants collect all the debris from around the pool, including these straws, plastic cups, discarded newspapers, etc and deposit the whole of the days waste in a skip which is presumably taken away to some landfill site out in the desert. It is unlikely that Dubai incinerates their waste to create energy, as they have more than they need in the sand beneath their feet!

No doubt some of this plentiful energy (along with lots of chemicals) is used to transform the vegetable matter used to make the straws into an alternative to fossil-based plastics. It is not clear from the labelling whether the paper wrap is also ‘compostable’ but anyone who has been to this part of the World will quickly realise that no one has a garden, so ‘home composting’ does not exist.

The whole object of producing these straws in compostable, plant-based material is to mislead the user into thinking there is some environmental benefit in replacing conventional plastics with this material, thus creating the (very false) impression they are contributing to ‘saving the environment’. This is the sort of greenwash we encounter daily in the UK. Not only from companies such as Iceland and our major supermarkets, who replace plastics with paper bags, cardboard, knowing that they are contributing negatively to the UK’s energy, water, and chemical usage.

But also, the other brand owners such as Heineken and Walkers Crisps who replace lightweight plastics for carton board multipacks again knowing that they are increasing CO2 emissions and accelerating the depletion of the Earth’s natural resources. It was DT Barnum who said, ‘You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time’.

One day, companies such as Iceland and their cohorts will be exposed for the pretence that any replacement material to fossil-based plastics must be environmentally better, knowing this to be totally untrue (greenwash).   

As ever, I would welcome your views on any of the items raised, and why not join me on LinkedIn for more regular updates?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-twigg-3a440b53/

#donthateplastic