Greenwash is a recently invented term (the word first appeared in the Oxford Concise Dictionary in 1999) used to refer to the practice of companies and other organisations to pretend they are concerned about the environment and doing something about it, when really what they are doing is superficial, out to impress, and, quite frankly... greenwashing us.

Or to quote the U.S.-based watchdog group CorpWatch "the phenomena of socially and environmentally destructive corporations, attempting to preserve and expand their markets or power by posing as friends of the environment."

There are thousands of examples around, from Tesco's scheme to reduce plastic bag usage whilst flying in unseasonable fruit and veg from all round the world, BP rebranding itself as a "green" company, BAE Systems claiming their weapons are environmentally friendly, and so on.

Claims made about how "environmentally friendly" and "natural" products are on their packaging frequently turn out to be misleading.

And as for recycling - what does "can be recycled where facilities exist" mean? Lets face it, anything can be recycled "where facilities exist". Trouble is, a lot of the time:- they don't.

Sourcewatch have lots more big corporate examples.