Controversial Cardboard Coolers

I was at a fishing shop in my home town shopping for Father's Day presents when something amazing caught my eye. Walking through the cooler section, I saw a row of cardboard coolers made by Igloo as a replacement for their historical, single-use styrofoam coolers. I was so excited that a company like Igloo would start an initiative like this. Green marketing extending past beauty products, organic foods, and metal straws. Many other companies have ditched styrofoam products as well, McDonalds no longer provides styrofoam cups. Igloo's new cooler is made of 100% biodegradable materials, what a step away from styrofoam, which is not degradable at all and is constantly polluting our planet, our environments, and haunting our landfills. The cardboard cooler is advertised to keep ice for 12 hours, and hold liquids for five days. You can even dry it out and reuse it a couple times according to Igloo. Thinking about how eco-friendly products have made their way into the market was making me hopeful, until I saw the price tag on this cooler.

It was almost $7. The price of the styrofoam cooler was almost $2. This brings up something that has been weighing on my mind about green marketing and how its privileged tendencies are slowly being revealed and analyzed. Think about it like this, a vacationing family with a higher socioeconomic status may come into this shop, see the cooler, and use their economic resources to pick an eco-friendly product. However, someone who doesn't have the same economic resources or socioeconomic status is still forced, within their means, to purchase the styrofoam cooler. This is an example of the economic privilege of living a more sustainable lifestyle.

Healthy lifestyles enforced by organic, natural, and eco-friendly products have been adopted by the wealthier families in the global North; this is because of education about the climate crisis and mostly about the economic means currently needed to maintain a more sustainable lifestyle. However, this has also resulted in commoditization of environmentalist movements into metal straws, natural beauty products, and almond milk, without addressing systemic causes of environmental and social injustice. "Subjugated groups like people of color and the working poor could not see themselves as part of the culture. It’s not that they couldn’t understand the urgency of environmental collapse, but they had more urgent problems in their lives. Yes, someone’s shoes may have been made in slave-like conditions, but they have no alternatives. They may not compost, but they don’t even have a yard to do so in" (Imgrund, 2018).

Greenwashing the market in the name of sustainability is just another capitalist dream in attempts to avoid uncomfortable, major lifestyle changes. Sustainability calls us to unplug from societal consumerism. It calls us to incorporate those who are not included in the privilege of eco-friendly, green-washed stores. In order for eco-friendly products to actually be useful on the scale they are needed, companies and corporations must take initiative to make these products economically accessible for all, rather than a wealthy elite.

Imgrund, M. (n.d.). Unpacking Racial and Class Privilege within the Eco Lifestyle Movement. Retrieved from https://ecowarriorprincess.net/2018/02/unpacking-racial-class-privilege-within-eco-lifestyle-movement/

Weiss, C. (2019, May 08). Igloo ditches the foam for its Recool multi-use biodegradable cooler. Retrieved from https://newatlas.com/igloo-eco-friendly-disposable-cooler/59509/#gallery