"Greenwashing" is the deceptive use of green marketing to promote the environmental friendliness of a company's products or policies. As the importance of being "environmentally friendly" has been steadily increasing since the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, companies have been progressively trying to make their products seem to be as "green" or environmentally friendly as possible in efforts to promote positive publicity. Although some of these companies are doing what it takes to be environmentally conscious, several are not but are instead creating an illusion of environmental concern, "greenwashing" their products. In cases like this, it has come to be of concern to many environmentalists and Americans as to whether or not the public is actually believing this deception. At what level is "greenwashing" successful and do Americans realize they are being misled on some of these claims of environmental concern?
