In a survey, 10 out of 14 types of plastic bags sold in grocery stores, convenience stores and shopping centers were falsely labeled as biodegradable, the Taipei-based Consumers’ Foundation said on Wednesday.
The mislabeled plastic bags break into small pieces as they degrade, but were nevertheless touted as biodegradable, said Ling Young-chien (凌永健), chief inspector of the foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to consumers’ rights.
The foundation purchased 14 brands of plastic bags at shopping malls, grocery stores and convenience stores in Hsinchu, Hsinchu County’s Jhubei City (竹北) and Taichung between March and last month. The same brands of plastic are available across the nation.
Photo: Wu Liang-yi, Taipei Times
Only four of the products were correctly labeled biodegradable, while the other 10 were found to degrade into small pieces despite being labeled biodegradable, Ling said.
Some of the falsely labeled plastic bags included materials such as corn starch or calcium carbonate, but they were still not biodegradable, he said.
“Even with corn starch in the material, the plastic bags would only biodegrade if microorganisms eat the starch. They would not biodegrade if they were dumped in the ocean,” Ling said.
False labeling violates the Commodity Labeling Act (商品標示法) and Article 21 of the Fair Trade Act (公平交易法), which bans enterprises from making or using “false or misleading representations or symbols” on their products or advertising, Ling said.
He said that the goal of the foundation’s survey was not to seek punishment for the companies involved, but to push the government to clearly define the meaning of the term “biodegradable” so that consumers are aware if they are purchasing genuinely “green” plastic bags.
The foundation advocated a ban on non-biodegradable plastic bags, citing a report released by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation at the World Economic Forum in January that said more than 95 percent of plastic materials used in packaging are used just once before being thrown away.
As much as 30 percent of such plastic packing materials end up in the oceans of the world, the report said, predicting that the total weight of plastics in the oceans would surpass that of fish by 2050.
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