Greenwashing has reached its apogee when a lawn care fertilizer company claims that it and its products are environmentally friendly. 

As CorpWatch once reported, "This initial wave of greenwash was labeled by former Madison Avenue advertising executive Jerry Mander and others at the time as "ecopornography." 

Greenwashing could also be described as polishing a turd.  But whatever the terminology, it is, at best, half truths and, at worst, lying.

Ted Steinberg writes in The Guardian, "The new Scotts marketing campaign is in part a response to the rising tide of opposition to the perfect lawn - weed-free, supergreen grass. Canada, for example, has been a hotbed of anti-lawn activism. More than 100 municipalities have put into effect some regulation or ban on the cosmetic use of lawn-care pesticides. In Europe, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have banned 2,4-D - one of the most commonly used herbicides in lawn care - because of its links to cancer, reproductive harm and neurological impairment.

"Rather than try to address these calls for reform, Scotts instead promotes green consumerism, making ecological virtue the personal responsibility of each individual. It is a retail solution to a wholesale, systemic problem and an effective strategy for warding off any more stringent regulatory measures in these neoliberal times.

"Scotts says 2,500 square feet of lawn produces enough oxygen for a family of four. Hello? The world is faced with many ecological problems, but a shortage of oxygen is just not one of them.

Scotts $30 million marketing campaign versus the reality seems to be mimicking Wal-Mart's attempt at deceiving the public, including some environmentalists, about that company's eco-friendliness.

An AlterNet article quotes a Wal-Mart Watch report that stated, "Lost in the sex discrimination and race discrimination class actions and the large number of wage and hour cases is the reality that Wal-Mart has been charged with a multitude of environmental violations over the course of the past ten years. Charges have come from both state and federal environmental officials costing Wal-Mart millions in penalties -- and costing the environment even more."

Steinberg continues: "Wal-Mart and Scotts may mean well, but the truth is that their environmental stewardship is made largely irrelevant in the face of their larger business plans. For example, big-box retailing is predicated on building stores at the urban fringe, where land is cheap. This kind of retail establishment involves a business strategy founded on high customer turnover. High traffic and lots of carbon emissions, in other words, are the keys to Wal-Mart's success.

"At a minimum, the company has a long history of encouraging excessive pesticide use.....In essence, Scotts profits from the sale of its products while pushing the cost of lawn perfection - the groundwater contamination and associated health risks - onto the environment and the public to bear.

"If Scotts really wants to save the planet, it should advocate on behalf of clover, moss and other plants - weeds as the company sees them - in the name of a more realistic and ecological sustainable vision of the yard. It should also eliminate weed and feed from its line of products. There is no need to throw pesticides around on a regular basis.

"...suburbanites ought to ask themselves this: Do you really need the help of a giant corporation to grow something as simple and easy as grass?"