The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has initiated proceedings against a well-known Australian brand of plastic bags after what they say were false “greenwashing” claims.
Clorox Australia Pty Ltd, the Australian subsidiary of The Clorox Company, which makes GLAD-branded kitchen and garbage bags, will need to answer a case over allegedly breaching consumer law by making false or misleading representations. They claimed some of their bags were made of recycled “ocean plastic.”
The ACCC’s case is that the bags were in fact made from plastic collected from villages in Indonesia that were in some cases 50 kilometres from the ocean, They are seeking declarations, penalties, injunctions, and costs.
“We allege that the headline ‘ocean plastic’ statements and wave imagery on the GLAD bag packaging, and the use of blue coloured bags, created the impression that these GLAD bags were made from plastic waste collected from the ocean or sea, when this was not the case,” ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
GLAD said they took the obligation to package and market its products with truthful and substantiated seriously.
“We are considering the ACCC’s concerns raised by their court proceedings announced today,” a spokesperson for Clorox told The Epoch Times.
“The proceedings relate to the 50 percent Ocean Bound Plastic Recycled Bags product line only (Kitchen Tidy small, medium and large, and Garbage large and extra large), which was discontinued by Glad in July 2023.”
These bags are made from 50 percent ocean recycled plastic and have the trusted strength of Glad® to hold household waste on its way to landfill. Recycling ocean-bound plastic reduces plastic pollution before it enters the ocean, helping to reduce pollution in waterways, save marine life and put an end to irresponsible waste.
Clorox decided to withdraw the affected products for sale from July 2023.
With an increasing number of consumers making brand choices based on sustainability and other environmental concerns, Ms. Cass-Gottlieb said buyers should not be misled.
“We are concerned that, by its alleged conduct, Clorox deprived consumers of the opportunity to make informed purchasing decisions, and may have put other businesses making genuine environmental claims at an unfair disadvantage,” she said.
“This action reflects our enforcement priority to take action against businesses making false or misleading environmental claims.
“Increasingly, consumers choose the products they buy based on their environmental impact, and in doing so they must be able to rely on the environmental claims made by businesses being accurate.”
A 2022 ACCC campaign focused on stamping out greenwashing claims through enforcement has already seen a successful similar prosecution upon yoghurt manufacturer MOO Premium Foods Pty Ltd.
The company accepted a court-enforceable undertaking to update the packaging design of its yoghurt products, remove references to “ocean bound plastic” on advertising and social media, and implement a compliance program.
“Our investigation revealed that the plastic resin used in the manufacture of MOO’s yoghurt packaging was collected from coastal areas in Malaysia, and not directly from the ocean,” ACCC Commissioner Liza Carver said.
