Dear CB2, we love you.
We love the bright red wool rug we got on sale. (Such a deal!) We love Whirly, the hanging glass globe candleholders that are a near match for ones we picked up in Paris years ago.
But we take issue with your latest catalog... you know, the one with the monkey on the front.
There's a certain tongue-in-cheek wit about most of the products and the writing: the cover is headlined "warming trends," and we get it. In the mix are genuinely green products, like the bamboo bath towels. But these "faux leather" bags, described in terse prose beginning "save the trees"? That really pushed our buttons.
Perhaps we're just suffering from the new green disease, Tote Bag Fatigue, but it seems to us that anything made out of faux leather (aka vinyl) isn't the greenest thing out there, even if these admittedly stylish totes do keep paper bags out of the waste stream.
Readers, are we being too harsh? Does CB2 deserve a reprieve? Do you love your new faux bois bag?
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Too harsh? Heck no!!
It's pretty careless of them to be promoting these bags as being "green" just cause they aren't made of leather. Vinyl is so freaking toxic!!
view katie's profile
You are righteous in your ire. It is exceedingly lame of CB2 to try and greenwash non-ecologically sound products, as bark-like as the print is. But I have to say that the new catalog is RAD. Oh and the monkey is a white-headed capuchin, that is not endangered, but really should not be kept as a pet.
view verasue's profile
liked the monkey myself, though I didn't interpret it as a pet.
As for the actual point, while CB2 should be called on this, is it the only offender or even the worst offender of this marketing doublespeak?
view JonathanB's profile
careless, evil, problematic
you decide
(or wait, did I just name three monkeys?!)
anyway
each and every instance should be noted and called out
I don't care if it's the worst case or not, it's still f*k'd up
view guido's profile
I suppose if you used a vinyl tote bag instead of plastic grocery bags, the net result would be ok. But indeed, this is still false advertising, and somehow false advertising that works on a person's desire to do right by the planet is an especially bad kind of false advertising.
view JoanneM's profile
Sorry, but isn't that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black? I've seen some products promoted here that I wouldn't exactly call green. Remember the disposable wooden utensils instead of plastic featured a few weeks ago?
While CB2's bags certainly aren't the best option, just practice a bit of what you are preaching.
view dollhouse's profile
my husband and i ordered a marimekko wall hanging with the hardware to hang the fabric. the packaging was insanely overdone. it had at the very least 4x the amount of cardboard that would actually be needed for such an item. it was pretty insane.
view sarajensen's profile
also, to comment on dollhouse...we use the wooden utensils at our lakehouse (which has no running water or electricity) because they are biodegradable and we can put them in the compost heap..they are way better than plastic!
view sarajensen's profile
Are they made from bamboo or something, these utensils?
view Monkeyme's profile
But wouldn't faux leather bags be "save the cows"?
view wende in the twin cities's profile