What does greenwashing really mean?

When you go shopping, do you look for items with labels like “recyclable” or “made with recycled materials”? You’re not alone. An increasing number of consumers want to buy products that are eco-friendly when they shop. Many companies advertise their products as being recyclable, made with recycled content, or compostable, but these claims can be confusing—and sometimes misleading. This has stoked fears of greenwashing.

What is greenwashing?

A NielsenIQ study published in 2022 found that 78 percent of US consumers say a sustainable lifestyle is important to them. Surveys have also shown that recycling is often the top environmental benefit consumers seek. This growing interest has made manufacturers aware of the competitive advantage that recycling claims provide.

Greenwashing refers to deceptive claims made by an organization to exaggerate or falsely represent the positive impact that a company, product, or service has on the environment.  As awareness of greenwashing has increased in recent years, outcry and greenwashing lawsuits continue to escalate.

Introducing the Green Guides

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its Green Guides in 1992 to provide guidance on the use of environmental marketing claims. These guides cover things like how consumers are likely to interpret particular claims and how marketers can make sure their claims aren’t viewed as deceiving to consumers. It’s important to know that these are just guidelines and not legally enforced mandates, except in the few US states that have adopted them by law. 

In 2012, the Green Guides were updated to make them easier for companies to understand and implement. At TerraCycle, we believe that these guidelines need to be more strict about recycling claims, and also include guidance regarding compostability claims. 

Why we care

TerraCycle’s core purpose is to combat the global waste crisis, and we’ve been working for two decades as a mission-driven company to address it. We create and operate first-of-their-kind platforms in recycling, recycled content,  and reuse around the globe—and we believe that consumers need more clarity regarding claims made about what happens to products when they are done with them.

It’s important to note that not everything that is labeled as “recyclable” or “compostable” is actually being recycled or composted at its end of life. The Green Guides say that an item can be labeled as “recyclable” as long as 60% of the population has access to a recycling solution. There is no additional requirement that those items actually get recycled. And currently, there are limited guidelines around labeling a product as “compostable,” including whether or not consumers have access to composting services. These oversights can mislead consumers and cause contamination of recycling streams—ultimately resulting in less recycling. 

What needs to change

• Guidelines are needed for new recycling models
  • Since the Green Guides were introduced in 1992, many new recycling options have become available to consumers, including privately run options (such as TerraCycle). The Green Guides should go beyond guidance on claims for local recyclability to provide guidance for claims on mail-back services, in-store drop-off points, community recycling locations, and more. 

• There must be stricter guidance for the use of “recyclable”
  • The term “recyclable” should only be used for a product or package that is collected and actually recycled. In order to provide more transparency, items marked as “recyclable” should meet the following criteria:
    • The company making the claim should be able to prove that their products and/or packaging have been recycled if asked.
    • The definition should not include anything that is incinerated, including waste to energy.
    • For multi-material items, the majority of the item's content by weight must be recycled. 

• We need guidance for the use of “compostable”
  • Products labeled “compostable” should be held to the same standards as products labeled “recyclable,” meaning that widespread access to composting solutions must be available (the expectation should not be that a consumer will home compost the item) and that the item would also actually be composted. Companies should be required to outline the specific conditions under which the product breaks down and guide consumers on proper disposal.

• ​Stricter standards are needed for recycled content claims
  • The definition of “recycled content” should only refer to post-consumer material. If pre-consumer material is used as recycled content, then the product should state the material breakdown in the claim. For example: “70% recycled content, of which 20% is pre-consumer industrial material.”

We submitted these recommendations during the FTC’s recent public comment period for the Green Guides (which ended April 24, 2023). You can read our full submission here. We hope our comments, alongside those of many other industry experts and members of the public, will inspire change.

We’ll continue to advocate for simple, clear recycling claims on products and in advertising because doing so will help make recycling more successful and move us closer to our mission of Eliminating the Idea of Waste®. We’ve changed our messaging too.  A number of years ago, we stopped using the word “recyclable” or the chasing arrows recycling symbol in our communications because we believe that those terms should be reserved for products and packages that can typically be recycled curbside. We’ve also created firm guidelines for the claims our partners can put on their products or packaging that can be recycled with TerraCycle, including clarifying participation limits, if any exist, in our free recycling programs. 

In the end, stricter green guidelines will allow consumers to better understand environmental claims, enabling all of us to reduce our footprint and do what we can to eliminate the idea of waste.