The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is continuing its crackdown on companies making misleading environmental claims, as for the second time this year, it brought a case against a company that markets plastic lumber and related products for misleading consumers regarding the environmental attributes of its products.
The FTC alleges that from the 12 months from June 2011 the company in question used advertising and marketing materials implying that its products were made virtually all out of recycled content, when in fact:
- Less that 79% of the material used on average was from post-consumer content,
- Approximately 8% of the company’s products contained no post-consumer recycled content at all, and
- Nearly 7% of the products were made with only 15 % post-consumer content.
The Californian Company, under the terms of the proposed settlement, is prohibited from making misleading statements about the amount of post-consumer recycled plastic content in its products or other environmental benefit claims and must have competent and reliable evidence to support any such claims. The order will expire in 20 years.
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