Whooeee! I’d better dust off my old bell bottom jeans and see if those tie-dye t-shirts still fit because it looks like ecology’s back in fashion. At least that’s what one could assume if the huge response to my call for suggestions for environmentally-friendly holiday gifts in last month’s editorial (see Going Green, Giving Green) is any indicator. Many of the products seeking entry into this year’s Green Gift Guide are innovative, environmentally-friendly, and often downright sexy, but the real evidence that eco-consumerism has hit the mainstream lies in the handful of completely inappropriate toys, gadgets and other cheaply-made junk that’s trying to pass itself off as green. Yes folks, green has become the new Red White and Blue, and the hucksters are trying to cash in.
It’s been a real hoot sorting through the dozen-odd greenwashed product submissions we received, marveling at the superhuman leaps of logic that marketing folks are paid large sums of money to make in an attempt to put some green lipstick on some of those pigs. One favorite tactic seems to be to tack a small solar panel on the side of whatever battery-powered junk you are pushing and call it "eco-friendly." I’ve seen solar backpacks, briefcases, and auxiliary battery packs that contain the usual witches’ brew of heavy metals, PCBs, and other non-recyclable toxics all trying to hop on the green-tech bandwagon.
Another inappropriate but creative entry was the ROSIE interactive coffee table from Savant which has an Apple-based touch screen controller instead of the usual glass table top (click the photo to enlarge). From my perspective, it’s a $4000 piece of impractical, trendy yuppie porn, but Savant’s PR person waxed poetic as she explained “Savant’s system is green in many ways; it can automatically close blinds, lower heat or a/c levels, and automate lighting for best efficiency. And the coffee table form factor is certainly unique.” If she can see a green product in this, I’ll have whatever she’s drinking…
As amusing as ROSIE and the solar backpacks were, my favorite greenwash products of the season were from a seedy-looking web retailer who runs a collection of web sites including something called Invention Environment and the Product News Channel. These loosely-linked sites are all pushing various subsets of a group of merchandise consisting mostly of weird imported gadgets that are too esoteric to make it into the Harbor Freight catalog. Apparently, their primary claim to eco-fame is a set of high-priced but environmentally-friendly cleaning supplies being promoted by celebrity Ed Begley Jr. (so that’s how he pays for his Prius!), but most of the rest of the on-line catalog consists of must-have items like a pine cone picker-upper and solar-powered butterfly wind chimes. Ah - no home is complete!
Probing further into the bowels of the Product News Channel, I stumbled into their Chopper Industry area and discovered the crème-de-la-weird product for this holiday season. Appropriately-named The Final Ride, the site describes their $750 Mobile Cremation Urn as “constructed to hold a generous amount of cremated remains, they may also be used to store personal items and act as a rolling memorial.” For once, words fail me.
Despite the barrage of greenwashed products I’ve waded through, this year’s harvest of truly green tech gifts is shaping up nicely. It is amazing to see how much effort and innovation that electronics manufacturers like Dell, HP, Kodak, Philips, Toshiba and others have demonstrated as they re-engineer both their products and the manufacturing operations. The result is several huge companies that are making long-lived, easily-recycled products in factories that consume far fewer resources and emit much lower levels of pollution than even five years ago. There are some interesting stories behind those products that I’m looking forward to telling when the Green Gift Guide comes out some time in mid-to-late November.
Comments? Questions? Last-minute entries for the Green Gift Guide? Write me at LHG at EN-Genius dot net or click below to post your thoughts on the blog.
