Being in the market for a compass and protractor set (as you sometimes are) I was perusing the stationery section at Sainsburys. Not even in green-think mode I was stunned to see a Recycled Stationery Set calling to me from the shelf.

The set’s different components were made from black plastic and they were attached to a green cardboard board with no other packaging. I was elated that eco-consciousness had spread so far.

“This is what we need!” I shouted (inwardly), “good basic recycled implements, not just walking-buses and composting. Green thinking that goes deeper than the well-meaning top soil activities we have so far embraced.

Then, as I transferred the stationery set to my basket I was side-swiped by an unexpected and apparently non-sensical sucker-punch. Written across the middle of each plastic tool in white letters were the words ‘Made in China’.

I was confused and bewildered. Made in China? The country that is building coal-fired power stations faster than a six-year-old breaks Bratz dolls! China whose pollution policies make fly-tippers look ethical? China, which when I last looked at a map was on the other-side of the world? (A journey of 1000 carbon footprints starts with a single step)

I turned the cardboard package over searching for some reassurance that I hadn’t nearly fallen for such a cheap shot, but it got worse. Only the cardboard holding the set together was recycled, not the tools in the stationery set. They were just plain old petro-chemically produced consumer items.

I was winded. I looked at all the other items in Sainsbury’s recycled range and found they were all made in China to. I was floored. I turned to the book section and looked up the word ‘cynical’. It appeared to mean the same in the dictionary Sainsburys’ sell as it does in all the others: scornful, sarcastic, derisive, mocking. Exactly what selling a recycled stationery set made in China is in my opinion. It’s like rewarding shoppers who reuse your plastic bags with petrol vouchers for your filling station.

I thank Sainsbury’s though for teaching me a lesson. Not until encountering their cruel stationery set trick, did I fully appreciate the true depths of Greenwash.

I read recently that a farmer in China has been fined for painting stripes on a white horse and charging people to stroke his ‘zebra’. At least the ‘zebra’ stokers got to pet a real horse. Unlike eco-minded consumers in Sainsburys’ who are being sold fairytale green goods.

Green Hornet