Organic, eco and bio: how to recognize an advertising move in product labeling

Photo: ecofinds.net

Viktoriia Hubareva

Sometimes, stores allocate entire shelves for such products, and it also happens that the entire market is ready to vouch for the environmental friendliness of goods, adding the prefix "ECO" to its name. Anastasia Martynenko, ecologist and mentor of Zero Waste Academy, is often approached by companies to clarify how safe a particular product is for consumers and the environment:

"Just 2 weeks ago, a company that packs its products in "bio-plastics" and "bio-bags" came to me with a request: where to send such packages for recycling. They were ready to collect them from their customers and recycle them so that the waste doesn't end up in landfills. But after our analysis, we found out that these bags are oxo-degradable. It's even worse than plastic. And the packaging contains polypropylene; no one will compost it."

It so happened that "bio-plastic" actually turned out to be even more harmful than ordinary bags, and the product's declared characteristics misled not only customers but also entrepreneurs. Such cases are not uncommon. Labels with the words "Natural product," "Not tested on animals," the images of green leaves, and other advertising tricks make us buy goods that rarely meet the declared qualities. It's called "greenwashing" — green camouflage, which emerged as all the rage to environmental friendliness, a new marketing ploy that increases the demand for a supposedly environmentally friendly product. Often, such markings make little sense; they're not prohibited by law, they don't declare directly about the quality of the goods, so no one can prove that another green sticker "ECO 100%" is a deception, not a design element.