I once stayed at some crappy roadside motel in Nowheresville, Georgia. The towels were thin, the toiletries the cheapest you can buy, the carpet worn, the bathroom held together by many tubes of caulk.

The room rate listed on the back of the entrance door? $399 per night.

Of course nobody in the history of that motel has ever paid more than 1/4 of the listed price for that room. It’s a total joke.

Here’s a photo of the price at Element Miami Airport I stayed in a few days ago when I had some meetings nearby. It was a fine hotel I’d gladly stay in again, with a great suite layout and a kitchen. When I search various dates for it online, the rate is usually around $150 or so. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say sometimes they’re able to charge double that amount. But here’s what’s on the door.

The original idea behind this practice was to keep hotel management or front desk clerks from gouging you. Cities or states required the “rack rate” be listed on the door as the maximum. If anyone paid more than what was listed, they could complain and get compensated.

Follow the logic of how hotel owners are going to respond and you know how we got into this silliness. If the hotel must list its maximum rate, the owner/manager is going to pull a ridiculously high number out of thin air and post it as a pipe dream. Nobody ever complains because nobody will ever pay anything close.

When I go on Trivago.com and search Miami hotel deals, I get 168 hotels to choose from in Miami proper (apart from the beach). That’s what keeps prices in check: competition. When people can go on that site and see prices from nearly every booking site out there, do we really need this silly system anymore?

I’m far from perfect when it comes to protecting our planet. I fly a lot, for one thing. And I relish things like air conditioning and a long hot shower. I didn’t lay out enough money to buy a hybrid car. But I at least try to be honest with myself and others about whether my efforts are making a difference or just making somebody feel less guilt. Greenwashing—the act of making something appear more eco-friendly than it really is—grates on my nerves.

1) Like many of the first-world people who can afford to spend double the normal price for some food items, we often have a fair bit of organic fruits and vegetables in our house. If done right and not shipped too far, this can be good for the planet. When done wrong, however, it’s just plain annoying. Like these cantaloupes.

They went from California to Florida, first of all, with who knows how many distribution center stops in between. That’s not the worst of it though. Here’s a pair of perfectly fine pair of organic melons wrapped in…a piece of plastic! Every single one of them in the store had this sticky wrapper. Plastic meant to inform us that this organic fruit is—wait for it—more healthy! Too much irony for two poor pieces of fruit. I feel sorry for them.

2) Next up, Bear Naked cereal and Terracycle. You’ve probably seen the Bear Naked product lines if you’ve shopped in Whole Foods. They make all-natural granola and the like that has plenty of crunch without any pesky additives like vitamins.  It’s hard to read this label when it’s reduced down like this, I know, so here’s the condensed version of what it says, with my additions in parentheses.

When you finish with this bag, return it to us (using a an odd-sized envelope, extra postage, and lots of postal service gas) so we can transform it (using more energy) into “umbrellas, shower curtains, and tote bags” (after which we use fossil fuel to distribute them). If you return enough of the bags and a shipping check, we’ll mail you a free tote bag or t-shirt (using more petroleum).

After all that, burning the bag in my back yard seems downright earth-friendly in comparison. 

3) You can read all about the Coca-Cola company’s new Dasani “PlantBottle” here. The PR-speak story is that 30% of this new lighter bottle is plant-based, but it’s still recyclable. Never mind that even my math-challenged daughter can figure out that means 70% of it is still plain ole toxic plastic. A far cry from the plant they’ve surrounded it with in this photo to throw us off.

Sure, 30% is better than nothing and they get credit for at least making some effort. But since some 3/4 of these single-use bottles never get recycled anyway, the whole Dasani business revolves around generating garbage and getting suckers to pay a premium for it. If they could figure out how to make the bottles 100% plant-based like some food packaging material is, the bottles would biodegrade eventually in the sun. These won’t. Cause they’re still plastic, made from petroleum and chemicals. Coming soon to an ocean gyre near you.

Feel free to share your own greenwashing rants in the comments below.

This in-room ad from Evian is a common one in chain hotels. Some supply a couple of plastic water bottles for free, even when the tap water is fine. Others charge you for it. Some do both, which was the case with this hotel in Lima, Peru. There was a bottle of the local brand for free, or this Evian one for 24 soles: that’s more than $8 U.S.

To put things in perspective, within a few blocks you could buy a whole lot of things for $8: a 3-course meal, going online at an internet cafe for 12 hours straight, a good bottle of wine, a bottle of rum, a good cigar, a taxi to central Lima from Miraflores, a hostel bed, more than 20 bus rides, or an Inca Kola t-shirt.

Here’s the kicker though. The note on the ad, in both English and Spanish, says you don’t even need this product. “Our hotel’s water is 100% drinkable but we also recommend you to enjoy the healthy taste of evian natural spring water.”

Or course that’s a lie. Evian water is not healthier than any other purified water and if you add in the environmental impact of processing it and transporting it across the Atlantic Ocean, using fossil fuel at every step it’s very very unhealthy. And that’s before the plastic goes into a landfill, to stay for centuries or more.

This is so wrong.

If you want to be healthy, and more wealthy, don’t spend money on bottled water in single-use plastic bottles. It’s indulgent madness. Carry a water purifier and your own bottle.

Usually I see annoying travel-related ads and I just grumble. But I’ve decided to share them as a regular series so we can talk about how badly they suck. I’m going to start with this new one from the latest issue of Wired magazine. It’s probably running lots of other places too.

I get the point they’re trying to make—that AT&T has the best international coverage. That’s something worth touting.

But if you’re going to England just to keep chattering with everyone from home on Facebook, then…why go to England?  Wouldn’t it be better to talk to new people instead—ones in the location where you are standing and walking?

This is so wrong. It’s not a vacation if you’re still tethered to home.

Hey AT&T, Can we go back to the cool painted hands ads instead?