Proposed Recycling Labels Are Misleading and Could Violate the Law, Experts Say

Walk into the market store and cheque the backmost of a instrumentality of food. Chances are, you’ll spot a tiny container with instructions connected however to dispose of the packaging erstwhile you’re finished with it: “empty & regenerate lid,” for example, oregon “recycle if cleanable and dry.”

These labels are made by How2Recycle, a programme operated by the nonprofit GreenBlue, which sells them to more than 700 large nutrient and user goods companies to enactment connected their products. The thought down creating them was to mitigate disorder among consumers astir what to bash with each the boxes, jars, jugs, and bottles that their purchases are packed in.

In caller years, however, companies person travel nether scrutiny for being excessively wide with their usage of the iconic “chasing arrows” recycling symbol: It makes integrative bags and different products look much recyclable than they truly are. Regulators person taken notice. At the nationalist level, the Federal Trade Commission is preparing an update to its “Green Guides” for the usage of sustainability labels, including the recycling symbol. And successful California, authorities instrumentality is expected to restrict the chasing arrows for astir packaging made of plastic, unless there’s grounds that the integrative is wide collected and turned into caller products wrong the state. How2Recycle’s program, created to assistance wide up this mess, is coming nether occurrence now, too

Earlier this month, GreenBlue announced it was revamping its more-than-a-decade-old How2Recycle labels. During a presumption astatine SPC Advance, a league organized by 1 of GreenBlue’s subsidiaries, Paul Nowak, GreenBlue’s enforcement director, said the labels request to “evolve with the satellite astir us,” taking into relationship factors similar “policy” and “recycling rates.”

Based connected a illustration representation of the caller labels, however, it’s not wide whether GreenBlue’s updates volition code concerns that they’re tools for alleged greenwashing, oregon that they comply with authorities law. Because there’s nary grounds that immoderate of the products acceptable to diagnostic the caller designs are really recycled astir of the time, the labels mightiness interruption California’s rules against deceptive advertizing and enactment GreenBlue astatine hazard of lawsuits from authorities regulators and user advocacy organizations.

The projected labels are “an evident and transparent effort by manufacture to circumvent California law,” said Howie Hirsch, a retired lawyer successful California who has worked connected respective recycling-related deceptive advertizing lawsuits.

Hirsch specifically objects to GreenBlue’s statement for “store drop-off,” which instructs customers to deposit integrative bags successful market store take-back bins truthful they tin beryllium collected for recycling. Currently, this statement features the words “store drop-off” wrong a triangular chasing arrows awesome — giving the inaccurate content that this integrative is apt to beryllium recycled. A revised mentation of that label, shared successful Nowak’s presentation, simply changes the arrows’ path: Instead of chasing each different astir a triangle, they present pursuit each different astir a circle.

A store drop-off receptacle for integrative bags and wraps. Image: Jan Dell

According to Hirsch, that tiny alteration isn’t capable to comply with California law. First, one conception of the California Business and Professions Code says that the chasing arrows triangle is functionally equivalent to — and taxable to the aforesaid truth-in-labeling restrictions arsenic — the circular mentation projected by GreenBlue. The instrumentality applies to immoderate variant of the awesome that is “likely to beryllium interpreted by a user arsenic an accusation of recyclability” — including “one oregon much arrows arranged successful a circular signifier oregon astir a globe.”

Another portion of California’s instrumentality referring to the FTC’s Green Guides requires the corroboration of recyclability claims: Companies that statement their products with the chasing arrows person to supply grounds that they are, successful fact, wide collected for recycling and turned into caller products wrong California. Plastic container manufacturers person not provided specified evidence, and they are under investigation from the California lawyer general’s bureau aft failing to bash so.

The circular chasing arrows “seems to beryllium conscionable the benignant of happening that we were hoping to propulsion backmost against,” said California State Senator Ben Allen, a Democrat who sponsored a landmark measure to reign successful the misleading usage of the recycling awesome that became instrumentality successful 2022. A separate instrumentality passed past month volition signifier retired integrative market bags offered to California shoppers astatine checkout. But galore different types of integrative bags and thin-film integrative volition inactive beryllium allowed.

An older mentation of How2Recycle’s “store drop-off” label. Image: Jan Dell

Jan Dell, an autarkic chemic technologist and laminitis of the nonprofit The Last Beach Cleanup, would similar to spot How2Recycle’s store drop-off labels vanish altogether. Store drop-off is “a hoax,” she told Grist via email. “All credible data, autarkic experts, and galore tracker studies beryllium that it is intolerable to collect, sort, and recycle post-household user flexible integrative waste” connected a meaningful scale.

According to an investigation Dell conducted successful 2020, California lone has the capableness to benignant and recycle astir 1 percent of its discarded generated from integrative bags and film. Nationwide tracker studies from Bloomberg and ABC News — utilizing Apple AirTags oregon akin devices — person shown that integrative bags deposited successful store drop-off receptacles are much apt to extremity up successful a landfill oregon incinerator than astatine a recycling facility.

Allen’s truth-in-labeling instrumentality volition soon adhd adjacent much circumstantial requirements for the chasing arrows and different symbols similar it. Starting 18 months aft the state’s recycling bureau publishes a study connected the recyclability of assorted materials, companies volition person to amusement that products labeled arsenic recyclable done a non-curbside programme — similar astatine a market store — are collected astatine a complaint of 60 percent oregon higher, and past sorted and recycled wrong the state. That threshold volition bump up to 75 percent successful 2030.

A drop-off receptacle wrong a Target successful Aliso Viejo, California. Image: Jan Dell

Recent analyses suggest it’s improbable that immoderate types of integrative bags oregon movie volition conscionable those precocious standards. In 2020, the Flexible Packaging Association said the U.S. recycling complaint for post-consumer movie and flexible integrative packaging was conscionable 2 percent. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for a circular economy, estimates that “near 0 percent” of flexible plastics sold to consumers astir the satellite is recycled; what small recycling that does hap involves turning polyethylene movie into “applications of little worldly quality” similar integrative decking and trash bags.

“As soon arsenic flexible packaging discarded is generated it is incredibly hard to woody with,” the foundation’s study says. As a archetypal bid of business, it recommends eliminating “unnecessary” integrative products.

In effect to Grist’s petition for comment, a spokesperson for GreenBlue said the enactment is reviewing its connection for caller labels with authorities agencies, including the FTC and authorities attorneys general, “to guarantee that pairing the label’s awesome with further clarifying accusation would represent a thoroughly substantiated claim.”

“If regulators deem the statement not successful compliance with California’s SB 343,” the spokesperson added, “How2Recycle volition prosecute a antithetic statement design.”

A spokesperson for the California Attorney General’s bureau declined to remark connected the How2Recycle labels and would not corroborate whether the bureau had spoken with GreenBlue. The FTC did not respond to Grist’s petition for comment.

Allen, the California authorities senator, said the plastics industry’s clip would beryllium amended spent redesigning products and eliminating unnecessary packaging to comply with caller laws, alternatively of fiddling with labels. In summation to the truth-in-labeling regulation, arsenic of 2022, California has an extended shaper work law requiring companies to conscionable elevated recycling targets for definite types of products.

“If they’ve got a existent program to fundamentally revamp recycling successful this space, past I’m funny successful proceeding astir it,” Allen said. “But claiming recyclability oregon encouraging radical to bash thing that they cognize they’re ne'er going to bash successful a meaningful way” — like dropping disconnected bags astatine a store — “it’s greenwashing and it’s a joke, and I conscionable don’t privation america to let for it.

This nonfiction originally appeared successful Grist. Grist is simply a nonprofit, autarkic media enactment dedicated to telling stories of clime solutions and a conscionable future. Learn much astatine Grist.org.