{"id":8078,"date":"2021-06-18T20:44:06","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T19:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/?p=8078"},"modified":"2021-06-18T22:34:50","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T21:34:50","slug":"wrapped-up-in-secrecy-how-are-supermarkets-greenwashing-their-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/wrapped-up-in-secrecy-how-are-supermarkets-greenwashing-their-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrapped up in secrecy: The battle against supermarket greenwashing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The supermarket Asda has started to sell second-hand clothing in an attempt to encourage consumers to shop more sustainably. But as some of the UK’s largest polluters, is this simply another of their tactics to greenwash consumers?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Laura Young and her mother felt a deep sense of satisfaction, handing over a reusable plastic tub to a man behind the supermarket counter. Like many, they were happy to play their part in the shop\u2019s new and widely publicised \u201cplastic-free\u201d scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, their good intentions seemingly went unnoticed, as the man began to bring out food encased in plastic wrapping to be unpacked and placed innocently on display. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken aback, they confronted him. “Yes, all of this you are seeing on the counter is packaged up like this in the back,” he said sheepishly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes with what we are being sold, there\u2019s a whole bunch of waste and plastic that comes with it and we just don\u2019t see it,\u201d said Young, a zero-waste advocate and climate activist from Glasgow. \u201cThen you think, \u201coh isn\u2019t it great that I\u2019m getting to buy my X, Y, and Z\u201d, when actually it came wrapped in plastic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u201cBring your own Containers\u201d initiative is just one of many green schemes used by leading UK supermarkets to have been accused of \u201cgreenwashing\u201d, a term used to describe tactics employed by organisations to appear more environmentally friendly than they really are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSupermarkets on the face of it are trying to do something, but really when you look into it, you think, what are they really doing?\u201d says Young. \u201cSometimes they might be trying to do a good thing, but the full intentions of what they are doing are not necessarily right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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