The website, created by campaign group the Changing Markets Foundation (CMF), has already accused brands including Coca-Cola, Tesco, Mars, P&G, Unilever and Sainsbury’s of publicising minor eco-efforts while doing massive damage to the environment.
George Harding-Rolls, campaign manager at CMF, said: “Our latest investigation exposes a litany of misleading and mendacious claims from household names consumers should be able to trust.
“The industry is happy to gloat its green credentials with little substance on the one hand, while continuing to perpetuate the plastic crisis on the other.
“We are calling out greenwashing so the world can see that voluntary action has led to a market saturated with false claims. We must embrace systemic solutions, such as absolute reductions in plastic packaging and mandatory deposit return systems.”
Claims about reclaimed ‘beach plastic’ and the recyclability of products were some of the most common for the group to call out as greenwashing.
Plastic packaging accounts for nearly 70% of the UK’s plastic waste, yet less than 10% of this plastic waste gets recycled in the UK.
A large majority of this plastic is exported abroad, where regulations are significantly less stringent and few checks are made on whether the recycling is actually taking place, according to Greenpeace.
Shampoo company Head & Shoulders was criticised for claiming it had made the world’s first recyclable shampoo bottle made from beach plastic.
The CMF pointed out that while this was all very well, many of Head & Shoulders’ products, including its famous 2-in-1 shampoo, and the beach plastic bottle itself, feature blue plastic caps that cannot be recycled because of the blue dye. Many other Head & Shoulders products feature blue bottles or pumps that likewise cannot be recycled.
According to Statista figures, Head & Shoulders brands accounted for over 55% of all shampoo market share in the United States.
Greenwash.com also pointed out that while making bottles out of beach plastic helps to clean a few beaches, it does nothing to stop bottles reaching the beach in the first place.
The website also criticised Tesco for publicising its new ‘recyclable’ flexible plastic packaging, which requires customers to store the plastic and then return it to larger Tesco stores.
According to a report by the CMF, UK supermarkets’ soft plastic take-back schemes often end up exporting the plastic to countries less able to deal with the waste, and represent a piecemeal, inadequate approach to the problem of single-use plastics.
When approached for comment by Printweek, a Tesco spokesperson said: “As part of our continuing work, all the soft plastic we collect will be sorted in the UK from later this year, ensuring it stays out of landfill and is recycled into a range of items.”
A full list of the CMF’s claims can be found at Greenwash.com.
