Officials in the world’s largest economy want to stop the use of a decades-old labelling system for plastics that some say incorrectly implies that products made of the material can be recycled.

In an April letter to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Jennie Romer, an official from the country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said, “Plastics are a significant problem that need to be addressed. Categorising plastics by resin identification code coupled with chasing arrow symbols does not accurately represent recyclability as many plastics (especially 3-7) do not have end markets and are not financially viable to recycle.”

The letter thus stated that PET and high-density polyethylene, numbers 1 and 2 respectively, are the only materials that are profitable to reclaim, thereby excluding PVC (3), LPDE (4), polypropylene (5), rigid and foamed polystyrene (6), and other materials including polycarbonates (7).

“Consumers generally understand the chasing arrows triangle to represent a universal recycling symbol and interpret it to mean that the product is recyclable,” the letter said, recommending the use of equilateral triangles to label plastic products.

“The issue is not the resin codes themselves, but the implication that all of them can be recycled. This implication is made when the numbers are combined with the chasing arrows symbol, which is why the combination becomes deceptive or misleading.”

The letter noted that California has prohibited the use of the chasing arrows or any other indicator of recyclability on products and packaging unless certain criteria are met.

The comments came in response to a commission request for input as considers an update of its so-called Green Guides, which outline the group’s views on environmental claims and help “marketers avoid making environmental marketing claims that are unfair or deceptive” under US law.

The EPA called for further changes. “There should be a very high bar for all qualified and unqualified environmental claims included in the Green Guides,” the letter said. “When products aren’t recycled right or aren’t recycled at all, the cost for consumers and communities is high. The ‘60% substantial majority’ claim that allows for an unqualified recyclable claim should be reconsidered in light of the changing waste stream and known access to recycling issues.”

The agency also recommended that that guides “be updated to restrict the use of the terms degradable, biodegradable, oxo-degradable, oxo-biodegradable, or photodegradable on any products which are customarily disposed of in landfills, incinerators, or recycling facilities.”

The FTC met in May to discuss possible changes and set a mid-June deadline for comments. The date for publishing the revisions has not been released. An FTC spokesperson told Plasteurope.com that the comments are still being analysed and there is no set timeframe for the next round of the process, which would generally be a draft of the guides, for which interested parties could then submit further opinions.  

In its submission to the FTC, the American Chemistry Council (ACC, Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) called for a broader scope for material recover terminology. “To reduce confusion among consumers the definition of ‘recyclable’ should be revised to mean ‘can be recycled.’”

Should that request be denied, the grade group requested that the FTC not raise the reclaim level needed to advertise a product’s recyclability. “If, however, the commission does not support that recommendation, at the least, FTC should not increase the 60% threshold for unqualified recyclable claims. ACC believes the current guidance regarding this threshold is already substantial. Higher thresholds will only serve to reduce the incentives for innovation in recyclable materials and increase confusion among consumers and marketers as to the meaning of ‘recyclable’.”