Misleading green claims on plastic bags cop fines – New Zealand
Posted on September 8, 2013 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting RegulationsMisleading green claims on plastic bags cop fines | Scoop News.
“A manufacturer of plastic rubbish bags has been fined $30,000 in the Auckland District Court for breaches of the Fair Trading Act in relation to environmental claims that were liable to mislead.
Pacrite Industries Limited pleaded guilty to ten charges in relation to claims about the oxo-biodegradability and environmental friendliness of its plastic rubbish bags, marketed as “Greensac” or “The Green One”. The claims were made on the bags themselves, the company’s website, in brochures provided to retailers and in media releases.
Pacrite claimed the bags, which contain an additive that makes them oxo-biodegradable, were better for the environment than conventional plastic bags, and its advertising stated or implied the bags would oxo-biodegrade in a landfill.
However, a Commerce Commission investigation found that while it is technically true that oxo-biodegradable plastic bags can break down in a laboratory the representation that the bags would undergo this process in the real world was liable to be misleading. This is because the bags, used for household rubbish, would predominantly end up in landfills and, once covered over, the vast majority of bags will not oxo-biodegrade because the process relies on sufficient oxygen to break down the bags.”

How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash?
These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time.
They do not need to be made of plastic.
On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter?
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