As an avid reader, I love my e-reader. The display technology is technically fascinating, and a great alternative to normal digital displays that emit light. For years now, I’ve been excited by this technology and the prospect of further development, dreaming that some company will create monitors oriented for consumers/offices with a usable refresh rate, which doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket. But rather, it seems the very opposite future has been found; instead of larger, faster, and beneficial devices for everyone, we have small, slow devices your supermarket uses to gaslight you.

I’m talking about E-ink labels, that our major Australian supermarkets all changed to almost at the same time. The E-ink displays take the place place of regular paper labels, supposedly because they are ‘greener’. Let’s get something straight. We were told we have to stop using plastic bags, and many stores are now switched to shoddy bags made of paper that will break if you put anything damp in it. Remember that before this, almost all of us, probably including you, kept those grey bags stuffed under the kitchen sink! They were handy for lots of things if you ever needed, often good as bin liners for the kids bedroom. Australian households recycled those things damn well!

Keeping in mind we phased out the plastic for paper because it’s greener. The supermarkets have now phased out paper for plastic enclosures containing lithium-ion cells and enough rare earth metals and silicon for wireless communication display interfacing. The net change has been worse for the environment! Think of how many thousands of those bastards are in a single supermarket, you must wonder, how much of an environmental improvement is it? At best it’s marginal, but personally I think it’s obvious that there is no improvement, or if nothing else, they spent a lot of time and money on a pissweak improvement.

I’ve inspected these things, and have found no way to open them. The things have no screws, they barely have a seam which doesn’t seem to me like you can pry it. If they break, they’re just going to be thrown out, and probably not recycled. Their systems would be 100% proprietary and unrecyclable.

So for what conceivable reason would the major supermarket chains think these devices are a better way to do things, if not for love of Mother Nature? I can think of a few benefits to these for a supermarket.

• Save money on sending employees to change price tags on the floor.
• No squabbles with customers about difference between the marked price and system price, the systems can be synchronized.
• You could change item prices throughout the day…

It wouldn’t surprise me if stories about the last one bubble up in a couple more years once we are used to this. There are probably more reasons, and I promise you that greenness is not a legitimate one on the list internally. I used to work at a supermarket, and plenty from my coworkers about the waste that goes on back of house. They could change their practice there instead; but they won’t, because it’s not public-facing. This environmental stuff is all about front-facing actions for an easy public relations strategy.

It’s nothing new for companies to greenwash themselves, but the fervor which it is happening is horrific to witness. Many people may not know of or remember the Spotify ‘Car Thing’ incident, where Spotify turned an entire product line they created into e-waste only a few years after release. At the same time, they released their green report on how they are saving the planet by reducing the size of app updates! If it is not clear to you, lopping off a few megabytes on a download to save the environment is like solving world hunger by throwing a handful of breadcrumbs to the wind, so they may be carried into the mouths of the starving. The impact is so statistically insignificant, it’s difficult to make an analogy that renders the germinal scale of Spotify’s contribution to the environment.

All of these companies are the same. They want to convince you that they are environmentally conscious, because it’s something their files say resonate with the public. But the key word is convince here. It is part of their ‘corporate social responsibility’, which is just a limb of public relations. They can, they will, and they do lie about this instead, because it’s easier and cheaper than doing actions that can put them at a disadvantage to their competitors. The supermarkets decided people would be stupid enough to simultaneously believe that we must use more paper, less plastic, and less paper, more plastic, to save the environment. It is this blatant lying about their environmental impact that disgusts me above anything. But apart from that, I can see some humor in the idea that supermarkets are so anxious about an inability to micromanage something so simple as a bit of paper stuck to a shelf, that they turn to these digital solutions. However, this anxiety is less funny when it extends to their employees, and they monitor the performance of back-of-house employees with AI.