Greenwashing

I stumbled across the term "greenwashing" the other day. According to Newsweek, greenwashing is making false or misleading claims about the environmental virtues of a product or practice. Evidently Boston College took a survey and found that fewer than half of consumers trust the green claims made by companies these days.

And I thought I was the only skeptic out there.

My question is, who defines green? What makes a product "green" or a practice, for that matter? You've probably seen the television ads of a prominent company claiming they have green practices because they power their plant with garbage. I think that is wonderful, but ... is it green? They aren't filling landfills with waste, and they aren't using coal to generate power, but is it really green?

And, here's a question about those energy-saving light bulbs. Do compact fluorescent bulbs really help the environment? I understand that they save energy, and have to be changed less often than conventional light bulbs. But what about the mercury they contain? What I found out was a little shocking.

Even though the compact fluorescent bulbs have mercury vapor in them, they make it possible for less mercury contamination in our environment. That seems a little backwards...but bear with me here. Most of the mercury contamination, at least here in the US, comes from the burning of fossil fuels (like coal). If we save power, less coal will be burnt to generate power, and then there is less mercury released. At least, that's what treehugger.com and wikipedia say.

So, what to do when your bulb runs out...because obviously I don't want to just toss this bulb in the trash. Ikea offers a free take back bin for used CF bulbs. That's awesome if you have an Ikea near you. Otherwise, you have to find out what your local area options are. I can take mine to a household hazardous waste collection site. It's a little tricky to figure out the schedule, as the collection site travels around the county. But, basically, the first Tuesday of every month it is at a fire station near my home. And, it's no cost to me. Perfect.

So, what have I decided about CF bulbs? They are a plus in my house. They may cost a little more to buy at first, but they do cost less to operate over time, and I don't have to run around changing light bulbs all the time.

I'm thinking that CF bulbs really are green...and not greenwashed.