Environmentally Friendly?

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday here in the US and I also hope they are being safe.  You might be wondering what I could complain about on a day that not only turned out wonderful weather wise and the time spent with the family.  I caught something this morning in a commercial that just irked me as we watch a couple of shows on the DIY network.

Obviously we were watching some kind of home improvement show and they assume that since you are watching that channel you would probably be interested in seeing products for home improvements.  And that's probably a safe assumption for the most part.  One of the newer trends on this channel is for the company to not only advertise their product but give you suggestions on how to use it.  This particular product happened to be paint.  The commercial started talking about how their paints were so great to use then talked about how they were better for the environment because they used less of some chemical than the leading brand.  So far so good.  Then they decided to gives tips on how to get the most out of their product, and that's where I have a problem!

There was the typical paint in a W pattern to start, blah, blah, blah.  The last tip was the thing that really got to me.  "To make clean up easier, use a disposable plastic paint tray liner."  Really?  So we talk about how environmentally friendly our product is but then we tell you to get the most out of our product you should use something that is likely not recyclable because of all of our product left on it when you are done.  In this process they reduce their carbon footprint (and get some tax relief) and raise yours.  The worst part is that they are not only going to claim that they have made things better for the planet, they are going to make more money because not only are they selling you the pain, they are selling you the disposable tray.  And the tray is probably made from recyclable plastic so they get even more credit.  You are the one that makes the decision to discard it in the trash rather than recycle it.  Of course, that decision is really made for you since the paint left on it isn't recyclable.  What ever happened to using water to clean things up?  Or how about paint thinner?  They make that a bit more environmentally friendly now.  Oh that's right, they can't tell you to clean something because they don't make as much money on things that you can reuse!

This is just more marketing crap that is being fed to the world to make the huge companies look like they are saving the planet and that it is consumers that are causing all of the world's problems.