Tag: How2Recycle Label

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Sustainable Packaging Coalition

FTC Takes Landmark Enforcement Actions on Green Guides Violations

A few weeks ago, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced enforcement actions against five companies making deceptive claims for biodegradable plastics, marking the FTC’s first action against biodegradable plastic claims since publishing their recently revised Green Guides. One of these companies, ECM Biofilms, Inc., is a biodegradable additive producer, while the other four, American Plastic Manufacturing, CHAMP, Clear Choice Housewares, Inc., and Carnie Cap, Inc., make and market plastic goods with biodegradable additives.

While each case varies, the FTC’s general assertions are that these companies market their plastics, or additives, as biodegradable in common disposal methods. The FTC found that their products do not degrade within normal disposal parameters, make claims without qualification, and do not have appropriate scientific testing to prove claims. One company in particular, ECM Biofilms, Inc., also used its own “Certificates of Biodegradability of Plastic Products” and provided deceptive marketing materials to distributors.
The FTC also announced an enforcement action against AJM Packaging Corporation, a paper goods company, in violation of a pre-existing 1994 consent order barring them from continued deceptive practices. According to the FTC, the company does not have scientific evidence or substantiation of their claims and as a result, imposed a $450,000 civil penalty for their violation.
The FTC’s enforcement extends to both on-package and off-package marketing claims. These actions bring up two crucial points: are biodegradable additives a sustainable solution and how do companies ensure they make accurate environmental marketing claims?
The FTC requires a product to biodegrade (break down completely and decompose into elements found in nature) within one year in common disposal settings (landfill, litter, or backyard compost) to make an unqualified claim. This has not been the case, as landfills are not designed for biodegradation and the products have failed to show biodegradation in any conditions during the required time frame.
All of this begs the question, are these additives actually a sustainable solution for petroleum based plastics? When they degrade, the environmental investment in the product is lost as recycling or waste to energy are no longer options. Further, when some of these materials are inevitably recycled, they contaminate the recycling stream and risk degrading the performance of the recycled resin.
Biodegradation and environmental marketing are complex issues. The Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s (SPC) previous study on Biodegradation in Landfills and Industry Leadership Committee on Meaningful Marketing Claims hope to clear up confusion and digest the complexity of these issues. The SPC’s How2Recycle Label also works to alleviate confusion around some of these issues by clearly communicating what to do with a package at end of use with clear on-package labeling.
For an easy read on some of the issues with biodegradables and compostables, take a look at a recent Ask Umbra article.

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Recover More Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Sustainable Packaging Coalition Celebrates America Recycles Day with a Look at How2Recycle Milestones

On this America Recycles Day, GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) celebrates America’s commitment to recycling by taking a look at How2Recycle Label milestones. Sustainability is a journey that relies on good design, accessible infrastructure, and consumer understanding of what, where, and how to recycle.

Sustainable Packaging Coalition member companies and staff identified a need for consistent on-package communication about recyclability of a package. Though consumers want to recycle, our studies found that many consumers are confused about what they can and cannot recycle, and desire clear recycling information on the package itself. The How2Recycle Label Program helps fix this problem by clearly communicating how and where certain materials should be recycled.

 Packages donning the How2Recycle label first entered the market in December, 2011. Since then, How2Recycle has grown from 11 founding participants to 20 with more to be announced soon. Press releases and website updates in the coming weeks will unveil the exciting new participants that will move with How2Recycle into its third year. SPC staff estimate at least 600 different products with How2Recycle Labels will be on shelf by the end of the year.
SPC staff continue to build relationships with partner organizations and consumers to expand the program. This includes collaborative projects with the Flexible Films Recycling Group of the American Chemistry Council, ongoing interactions with government agencies, participation in critical industry conversations, and responding to feedback from consumers.
Through a How2Recycle survey, consumer testing, and social media feedback, the public has expressed their overwhelming support of the program and its participating companies. For example, when referring to how the label made them feel about the company using it, one respondent said, “The company is obviously trying to reduce their carbon footprint and I think that is awesome and commendable.” Another noted, “It shows me the company is taking an active interest in recycling for the future of sustainability and the environment.”

About 75% of survey respondents had a positive experience with the label and about 80% thought more positively of companies if they used How2Recycle. 85% of survey respondents found How2Recycle easy to understand, a critical goal of the program. According to one respondent, “More products should do this!! It takes away the guessing game out of recycling.” Another respondent showed the educational benefit of the label, “I didn’t know that in-store plastic bag drop-offs also accept other types of plastic package film, so now I will start recycling those.”

How2Recycle’s success would not be possible without the pioneering participating companies. Their commitment to clear and concise on-package recycling labels make them leaders in their industry. Melissa Craig of Kellogg’s notes: “Consumers need clear, concise communication when it comes to recycling, so materials that can be reclaimed don’t accidentally end up in landfills. This label helps ensure all packaging components are recycled as intended, to further reduce the environmental impact of our products and promote conservation.”
GreenBlue and the SPC look forward to another successful year helping consumers and companies fulfill their America Recycles Day pledges through the How2Recycle Label Program. Our goal is to have How2Recycle Labels on the majority of consumer-facing packaging by 2016.
Let us know what you’re doing for America Recycles Day, and what you think about our How2Recycle Label on Twitter @How2Recycle or @GreenBlueOrg!

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Recover More Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Meditating on Sustainable Materials Management

Last week about a thousand people attended the Together for a Better Planet – Sustainability Forum in Mexico City. Jeff Wooster, GreenBlue board member, and I were among them. The event presented opportunities for companies to showcase products and services with the potential to reduce environmental burdens of various industrial necessities. There were displays of solar panels, wind turbines, electric delivery vehicles, commercial lighting, packaging, agricultural production, etc. The hope with all of this innovation and effort is to allow for the continuation of business while lowering the associated environmental impact over time.
There were discussions on various topics, and one that Jeff and I participated in involved the sustainability of packaging. The panel discussion remained fairly high level and offered a systems perspective for packaged goods. There was much discussion about the recovery of materials from the waste stream and how the bulk of packaging materials end up in landfill or open dumps in Mexico. The small amount of material sorting that occurs in Mexico follows two paths:
Trash collection service is offered in a relatively small part of this enormous and populous city. A crew of half a dozen or more men pick through materials of interest as the truck moves down the street. Keep in mind that all the stuff is commingled trash – wet organic and food waste, paper and board, plastics, metals, glass and all sorts of other refuse. The men work fast and efficiently, and surprisingly in a jovial manner, yet many of them are working with their bare hands to pick the valuable materials.


The second pathway of material recovery occurs at the landfills or dumps, and is an informal mechanism powered by poverty and necessity. Here pickers, the poorest among the poor, risk injury, sickness, and indignity to earn pennies. They pick valuable materials for recycling in an informal material economy. The work is menial, dirty, unsanitary, unsafe, and often occurs under harsh weather conditions. The recovered materials, the fruits of the pickers long hours of labor, probably yields a substandard market price. This is because the materials were collected from a dump of mixed contaminated source; hence the quality of those materials is generally poor. Many high value materials such a s paper and board are rendered useless for many recycled applications due to being wet and adherence of foreign matter. After all of this effort, these materials are destined for lower performance usage and much of the embedded energy – both base materials and human energy – is lost.

I presented the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s How2Recycle label that provides a clear and consistent means to communicate actions needed for proper disposal of packaging to optimize recovery. In Mexico, where recycling infrastructure is lacking and the ethic of material stewardship is underdeveloped, such communication combined with packaging waste bring sites can engage the citizens to do their part in closing the material loop. Engaging the citizens in material stewardship has long-term benefits for a more sustainable world, and can move society away from a use and throw model to a sustainable materials management (SMM) model where technical materials flow back into the cycle to be reborn as new packaging or product components.
Outlining the story of a company’s stewardship in combination with the How2Recycle recycling label is an opportunity to show the company’s determination to make sustainable material management a priority. It can help reinforce the critical role citizens play in closing the loop on packaging material recovery, and develop the recycling ethic in citizens, particularly children, that can bear long-term fruits in developing a sustainable material economy.
A brief anecdote from the streets of Mexico City:
One man’s trash is another man’s _________.
After the conference I moved from the posh Polanco area where the event was held to a hotel in the historic district. As I made my way from the Isabel la Catolica metro station, I saw a homeless man with natty dreads and messy clothing moving towards me. Such apparitions intrigue me and this one did not disappoint. The man had a faraway look in his eyes and he did not see me, or anyone else, and I might guess the throng scarcely noticed him.
This man’s manner was of great interest to me. He was simultaneously of the immediate environs yet somehow outside it. The man meandered through the flow of humanity while slowly and meditatively popping the tiny bubbles on a sheet of bubble wrap. He wasn’t popping the bubbles for apparent amusement or passing of time. His treatment of the packaging material was akin to one engaged in reciting prayer with the rosary beads or other meditative equivalent. He slipped through the random moving bodies about him seemingly aware only of his mumblings and the systematic row-by-row popping of the bubbles.
I observed the man as he moved peacefully through the pandemonium about him. I might say a bit of his peace transferred to me and helped me navigate the rush hour shoulder-to- shoulder metro traffic.