“Eco-friendly” Products are a SCAM

More than ever products are misleading us into thinking they’re better for us, better for our wallet, or better for the planet than they really are. And we all just want to buy stuff without feeling guilty right?

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Script: Hanna Peter
Editor: Matthew Veal
Project Manager: Lurana McClure Rodríguez
Host: Levi Hildebrand

[GrumpyIan]

Something that really infuriates me about green washing, companies like Apple. They claim they're taking steps to be eco-friendly/ carbon neutral/ negative but instead of making their products easy to fix and last a long time they're making their products extremely difficult/ impossible to fix.

[AcidDotDrop]

As a graphic designer, i’ve seen A LOT of cases where companies print a recycled paper texture on stuff to trick customers.

[TheSharna]

The fact that recycling is the first thing most people think of as “eco friendly” is part of the problem. The slogan is REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE… in that order! First, reduce the amount of stuff you buy and accumulate. Then reuse packaging and containers, give away clothing, etc. THEN you look to recycle. Recycling was never meant to be the main thing.

[angieakasara]

Eco friendly label being printed on plastic is peak irony 😭😭

[GrubbsandWyrm]

Worked in a grocery store, and the most important thing I learned is to ignore anything on the front of the box with groceries. The front is marketing. The back of a box has all the info you need.

[daemiax]

People always forget that the order in Reduce>Reuse>Recycle is important.
I don't care about apple making their phones from recycled materials.
Reusing my old phone is INFINITELY more energy efficient than recycling.
To recycle you need to introduce energy into the system, and to re-manufacture you're introducing even more.
Reusing? Well you introduce 0 if it's still working.

[LouSchonder]

I can't help but to mention the new "recyclable Keurig pods". The effort to recycle them is so substantial that one would be better off just using a real coffee pot. 😂

[blackmber]

The minimalist trend took it too far. When it comes to sustainability, we should shop like a minimalists, but we don’t have to stage our homes like one. As a lazy person, this middle ground appeals to me because it means I can spend less time shopping and less time throwing things away, while also reducing my environmental impact. Win-win-win!

[cassieoz]

There's a wide gap between 'minimalism', rejecting fads and trends, and dont-buy-crap-you-dont-need

[normalperson]

Whoever called cheap, shitty faux leather "vegan leather" was a genius

[gokuson]

Main infuriation to me is how these corporations made reusing/recycling their products’ trash/leftovers the consumers’ problem in the first place…WITHOUT having to leave any other options for said products. Example: My dad remembered when all he and his family had to do was use the milk they paid for, maybe rinse the bottle out, then stick the empty bottles back out on the step, and the milk man/company he worked for did the rest. If you lost a bottle or broke one, that was ok, you could get another one on the next round if you wanted. They had the option to buy milk in other packaging, but preferred the glass bottles. So, why won’t corporations do this now, other than because GREED?

[Midori_Hoshi]

I hate how everything is plastic, even most of the products that appear to be plastic-free. For example, virtually all glass jars with metal lids contain plastic in the lid. If you search for cotton clothes, most of them will be a mixture of cotton and plastic. I'd kill for an accurate "plastic-free" search term we can toggle on at places like Amazon.

[k.b.]

Even pizza boxes- Dominos prints their boxes with a "recycle this box!" on them, but my city does not take used pizza boxes in recyce because of the oils. We can put them into the green bins, but i dont think thats well known.

[zwerko]

One of the worst greenwashing offenders is the company that made that laptop on your left. They purposefully go out of their way to make their products non-serviceable and have been actively lobbying against the right to repair making sure that the only alternative to a problem with your device is its complete or near-complete replacement. The environmental impact of a single of their devices easily dwarves all toothpaste tubes and toothbrushes a family will use over a couple of generations.

[Eli.Mia]

back in my days the toothpaste was in a metal container, the bread was sold without any wraps, milk was sold in re-used Fanta bottles and the water was bottled in glass bottles which we had to return to be able to buy more water.

[kaw]

Funny enough, my environmental science degree made me cynical and it caused me to stop recycling. If you buy a product, do it to improve your immediate environment, don't do it thinking you're saving the planet. I've called this "don't poop where you eat" environmentalism.

[brendanforde]

As a Biochemical engineer, we are in such a dire situation. Like the fact that people dont know the difference between the resin symbols and think it means recyclable is so dangerous.

[Vednier]

Speaking of recycling, i once used HP printer and when cartridge life was close to end HP emailed me about "recycle program". Guess that, on opening ling provided its turned out program "unavailable in my country", but HP continued to remind me about recycling...main goal was to make you feel responsible, not to actually recycle anything.

[Drewcardello]

"Eco friendly" is to use old stuff that are made to last.

[stonefox]

The thing about recycling plastic bottles, is that it's actually very easily doable. Finland has been doing it for decades (and the EU-wide system in place now is actually a big step down from the older Finnish version of "make sturdy plastic bottles, wash/disinfect them between uses until they get too ratty looking" to the new "make thin bottles and shred and remould them every time"). How? Every bottle is wort 10/15/25 cents if you return it with the barcode intact. Even if you personally can't be bothered, someone will. If America hasn't caught up, it's not because they can't, it's because they don't want to.