Garbage bag giant Clorox Australian fined $8m over ocean plastic recycling claim

The company behind GLAD garbage bags has been fined more than $8 million for falsely advertising its products were made of recycled ocean plastic.

Last April, the competition watchdog instituted proceedings in the Federal Court against Clorox Australia over false claims its GLAD Kitchen Tidy Bags and Garbage Bags were made up of 50 per cent recycled “ocean plastic” collected from an ocean or sea, when that was not the case.

These GLAD bags were instead partly made from plastic collected from communities in Indonesia — up to 50km from a shoreline — and not from the ocean or sea.

The Federal Court on Monday ordered Clorox to pay a total penalty of $8.25m for the false claims made between June 2021 and July 2023 on more than 2.2 million products.

Clorox discontinued the products in July 2023, after it became aware the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission had started investigating, but before it commenced these proceedings.

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said claims about environmental benefits mattered to many consumers and may impact their purchasing behaviour.

“When those claims are false or misleading, this is a serious breach of trust, as well as the Australian consumer law,” she said.

“This is also a significant matter because consumers have limited or no ability to independently verify the accuracy of the claims made on packaging and it also disadvantages competitors who are accurately communicating their environmental credentials.”

Clorox was ordered to set up an Australian consumer law compliance program, publish a corrective notice on its website, and pay part of the ACCC’s legal costs, among other orders.