The Color of Money

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

The environmental language debates really began in 1991, when a Green Marketing Task Force was formed, consisting of the attorneys general of 10 states. The task force went after cases in which terms like biodegradable, compostable, and ozone friendly were misleading if not blatantly false, including the landmark case of Procter & Gamble's compostable diapers.

It's true, you might be able to compost parts of a disposable diaper, but not 100 percent of the diaper. And the real problem is that composting facilities that are capable of turning a plastic disposable diaper into soil enricher are extremely scarce. So composting this product is theoretical, not practical.

According to a task force agreement eventually signed by Procter & Gamble, the attorneys general concluded that "Procter & Gamble's labeling for samples and its advertising misrepresented, directly and by implication, that Luvs and Pampers diapers are 100 percent compostable, that facilities that accept disposable diapers for composting now exist on a wide basis nationally, and that composting facilities for mixed solid waste are being rapidly developed and built, when that is not the case. Procter & Gamble denies that its labeling for samples and its advertising are misleading:'

The agreement required Procter & Gamble to limit its claims. For example, Procter & Gamble must "clearly and conspicuously disclose" the percentage of the diaper that is compostable. Although the agreement technically applied only in states that participated in the task force, the effect was wider. According to Andrea Levine, a former Assistant Attorney General of New York who participated in the task force, due to the cost of labeling and advertising, a company is unlikely to make claims on a product in one locale that can't be made in another. Procter & Gamble eventually pulled its ads across the country, not just in the states where the agreement applied.

Perhaps the task force put a scare into some companies, but its impact on environmental marketing standards was greatly limited by the fact that it only pursued misleading claims on a case-by-case basis.

And the task force did not directly address the fundamental questions of the language of environmental marketing. When can you say something is compostable without badly bending the truth? And when you call something recycled, does that mean it's 100 percent recycled or 2 percent recycled? And is that post-consumer waste or simply mill scraps? And what exactly do you mean by environmentally friendly and recyclable? Theoretically, almost any kind of plastic or metal is recyclable. But in all those chasing arrows stamped on plastic products, only the ones with the numbers one and two are widely recyclable. In most cases, you might as well throw the other containers numbered three and up into the trash. Once again, their recyclability is only theoretical.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print