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Green products should cause some skepticism
BY PETER ZETHRAUS
STATESMAN STAFF WRITER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A view of the INEOS oil refinery at
Grangemouth, in Scotland.
Whether it comes from the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” or from watching daily news reports about the latest crisis, someone would have to be living in a cave to not see that concern about the environment is at the forefront of our global problems today. I think most of us can agree that, to some extent, the environment is facing certain problems, whether it be the theory of global warming or simply worrying about what to do with garbage.
Within the last couple of years, our corporate society has released an innumerable amount of “green” products that are supposed to protect the environment from harm. All you have to do is walk down the aisle of a supermarket, and you will see products ranging from a “biodegradable degreaser” by Power X to Clorox’s “environmentally friendly” cleaning supplies to beverages sold in recycled bottles. As someone who is genuinely worried about the environment, I see these items in the store and walk away with a certain pride. But does anyone actually wonder if these “environmentally friendly” products truly are safe? A lot of the companies that are producing these “green” products are companies that are still poisoning the environment.
The Duluth News Tribune recently reported that “60 percent of people said they agreed with the statement, ‘I often wonder if a product is really ‘green’ or if the company is just saying that it is,’ ” according to the article “Decades after the first Earth Day, many Americans suffer from ‘green’ overload.” I feel that the people who are more concerned about the world today, and know the most about the facts, are the ones who are most skeptical about the “greenness” of certain products. How can we really expect to believe the television commercials from oil companies who say they are going green when they are still dumping millions of gallons of oil into the world’s oceans?
What someone needs to do is look at the environmental records of these corporations to see if they are really as environmentally friendly as they claim to be. Even environmentalists are skeptical of companies falsely labeling their products as “green” when they really are not. Some environmentalists have even coined the term “green washing” to describe the businesses who publicize their insufficient green accomplishments while causing further environmental problems, according to the Duluth News Tribune article.
I feel that a good thing about environmentally conscious consumers is that they are getting a lot savvier about how to decide which products are actually helping the environment and which ones are not. The best thing that can be done now is to continue to educate people on the ways to protect the environment and the ways to sniff out the faulty products that actually cause more problems. People can also do simple things to help the environment such as shutting off lights and electronic devices, recycling garbage and paper and finding additional means of transportation, such as walking, bicycling or carpooling.
We simply need to be more cautious and aware about the products that we are buying, making sure that what we purchase is actually safe. We already have enough problems as it is; the last thing we need are companies further polluting our environment with defective green products.
