GLAD bags manufacturer in Aussie court for ‘50% ocean plastic’ claims

This week, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has started court proceedings in the Federal Court against Clorox Australia, the maker of GLAD-branded kitchen and garbage bags.

The ACCC alleges Clorox represented its Glad Kitchen Tidy Bags and Garbage Bags were made up of 50% recycled “ocean plastic” collected from the sea, when this was not the case.

Instead, the ACCC alleges the bags were made from plastic collected from communities in Indonesia located up to 50km from the shore, and not from the sea.

“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.

Consumer NZ welcomes the ACCC action

Consumer NZ wrote about the potentially misleading claims on GLAD’s “50% ocean plastic recycled bags” back in April 2023.

We also thought consumers were likely to think the plastic was collected from the ocean, when that wasn’t the case. Instead, the plastic was collected from inland communities that had no formal waste management system – far from the sea.

In the court papers, the ACCC allege that the wording on the rubbish bags “took advantage of consumers’ concerns about environmental pollution, particularly plastic waste in the oceans.”

Meaning consumers spent money on products thinking there was an environmental benefit, when there wasn’t, or the benefit was overstated.

Consumer’s Sentiment Tracker research has found that consumers find it increasingly difficult to assess the truthfulness of environmental claims on products. Nearly 6 in 10 respondents thought it was either moderately important or very important that environmental claims are checked before products hit the shelves.

Help us stop greenwashing in Aotearoa

Overseas, regulators are bringing in new laws and taking legal action against manufacturers who make over-zealous green claims.

In New Zealand, the Commerce Commission can issue warnings to companies if they mislead consumers or can’t back up their claims, but that relies on shoppers working out which claims are dodgy and reporting them.  

It shouldn’t be up to consumers to keep companies honest. In the meantime, greenwashing is hitting the planet – and your wallet – where it hurts. 

Help us tackle greenwashing in Aotearoa by sending us examples. We’ll investigate and hold businesses to account for misleading green claims, and call for tougher laws to stamp it out.