Greenwashing

Greenwashing isn’t doing your laundry in an environmentally friendly way. Rather, it refers to advertising and marketing aimed at making consumers think a product is more environmentally friendly than it really is.

Basically, greenwashing is deceptive green marketing. That doesn’t mean the company is necessarily blatantly lying, like putting fake “approved by x green watchdog.” Greenwashing can mean a company is spending way more on marketing their greenness than they actually do on...being green, or can put the word “natural” with some nice leaves around it even though the product is not really natural (what does that even mean? In literal Chemistry class, you learn that everything is “chemicals,” including “natural” things).

Next time you’re at the store buying some laundry detergent, check yourself before you wreck yourself to see if greenwashing is working on you.