Recycling. Your client expects it. You expect it. By now your suppliers should be offering you recyclable options for products you’re sourcing with an ever-increasing cadence. But what should you do if your sales rep claims a product is recyclable, but in reality it isn’t? Turns out some states are already getting out in front of this issue so you won’t have to deal with it after the fact.
“It’s a basic truth-in-advertising concept,” says California State Senator Ben Allen, the lead sponsor of a bill recently passed by the state’s assembly that would ban companies from using the classic triangle of three arrows recyclable symbol unless they can prove the material can actually be recycled in most California communities, and also that it is used to make new products.
If you’re like me, you couldn’t imagine that it was just unscrupulous, but not illegal, for a supplier to advertise a product as recyclable if it wasn’t. “We have a lot of people who are dutifully putting materials into the recycling bins that have the recycling symbols on them, thinking that they’re going to be recycled, but actually, they’re heading straight to the landfill,” Senator Allen says.
You and your clients are probably doing a pretty good job of recycling paper and metals already, and chances are good that lots of your neighbors are, too. But unfortunately, still less than 10 percent of plastic used in the United States is recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. With the exception of plastic resins used in containers for bottled water and soft drinks, most other single-use plastic is just being incinerated or dumped in landfills.
So what’s the deal? The recycling crisis really started in 2018. That’s the year that China closed its doors to the overwhelming shipments of recyclables the U.S. was exporting to China for processing. Then along came a global pandemic, bringing the suspension of some community recycling programs, intersecting at the same time with the amount of packaging waste generated at homes growing exponentially.
California isn’t the only state cracking down on deceptive recycling claims made by suppliers. This summer, Maine and Oregon passed laws allowing the states’ recycling systems to make corporations pay for the cost of recycling packaging materials so that communities actually doing the recycling would bear less of the burden. In Oregon, the law established a task force that would evaluate “misleading or confusing claims” related to recycling. Legislation is pending in New York that would ban products from displaying misleading claims there.
In the past year, several environmental organizations have filed lawsuits seeking to combat misleading claims of recyclability by major corporations. The recycling symbol is “subconsciously saying ‘You’re environmentally friendly,’” says Heidi Sanborn, executive director of the National Stewardship Action Council, which advocates corporations shoulder more responsibility for recycling product packaging. “Nobody should be able to lie to the public.”
Republic Services, one of the country’s largest waste and recycling companies, processes six million tons of curbside recycling a year. Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability, says that more than 20 percent of what’s picked up at the curb nationwide is nothing more than non-recyclable garbage. That’s all those snack pouches, plastic film, single-use grocery bags, and packing material. Keller focuses on the plastic bags in particular, because they can’t be recycled in curbside recycling programs and notoriously gum up recycling machines. “There are a lot of products in the marketplace today with the chasing arrows that shouldn’t display them”, Keller said. “There aren’t really any true end markets, or any real way to recover and ultimately recycle those materials in curbside programs.”
In addition to plastics, the California bill covers all consumer goods and packaging sold in the state, excluding some products already covered by existing recycling laws, like the beverage containers and certain kinds of batteries. Through its environmental advertising laws, California prohibits companies from using words like “recyclable” or “biodegradable” without supporting evidence.
So if your state doesn’t have a law against recyclable misrepresentation, in the meantime, it’s like many other considerations in the relationship between distributor and supplier- the best advice is still “trust, but verify” when it comes to recyclability. So, how about you, the next time you have a conversation with a supplier that claims an item is recyclable, will you ask, “Do you know that for sure?”
Jeff Jacobs has been an expert in building brands and brand stewardship for 40 years, working in commercial television, Hollywood film and home video, publishing, and promotional brand merchandise. He’s a staunch advocate of consumer product safety and has a deep passion and belief regarding the issues surrounding compliance and corporate social responsibility. He retired as executive director of Quality Certification Alliance, the only non-profit dedicated to helping suppliers provide safe and compliant promotional products. Before that, he was director of brand merchandise for Michelin. Connect with Jeff on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or read his latest musings on food, travel and social media on his personal blog jeffreypjacobs.com. Email jacobs.jeffreyp@gmail.com.