For the past five years, I've blogged at My Plastic-free Life about my personal journey to reduce my plastic consumption and plastic waste to as close to zero as possible. I also often write about the plastic-free products I discover.
As my readership has grown, so has the frequency of product pitches in my email in-box.
But sadly, more often than not, the pitches I receive are irrelevant, or don't contain enough information to capture my interest. I'm not going to review an organic shampoo in a plastic bottle, even if the producer hand-picked the ingredients from her own backyard herb garden and reduced her carbon footprint by mixing them using a pedal-powered generator.
In conversations (read: rants) among other green bloggers, I've discovered I'm not alone with my pet peeve of problem pitches, so I reached out to GreenBiz to let me explain the best and worst ways to pitch us -- and how to avoid the dreaded greenwash.
Although some pitches for greenwashed products generate hilarious comments in green blogger chat groups, they are not the kinds of comments you intend. So here are a few rules we would like you to follow to avoid the greenwash altogether. The keyword in every case: TRANSPARENCY.
Photo of egg blog provided by Gunnar Pippel via Shutterstock
Next page: Tell me what's in your product
Don't just tell me what's not in your product. Tell me what is in it.
Everyone loves to tout their product as BPA-free, phthalate-free, lead-free and even chemical-free, which of course is a meaningless claim. So you're free of lots of bad stuff. Great. But how do my readers and I know that your product is safe if you don't tell us what ingredients are in it?
There are thousands of possible additives in plastics, for example. How do I know what could possibly leach out if I don't know what's in it to begin with? How do I know if your fragrances and dyes are safe if I don't know what they contain? Words like "food grade plastic" are not enough for us. I know you want to protect your trade secrets. But we green bloggers want to arm our readers with information to protect their health and the environment. The more transparent you are with us, the more likely we will be to promote your product.
Don't just tell me your product is natural or organic or compostable. Tell me how it's packaged.
I'm not likely to promote your compostable dinnerware if it's packaged in non-compostable plastic wrap. The packaging is as much a part of what you are selling as the product itself. And many of us are confused by the idea of organic food packaged in plastic, when some plastics may leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals back into the food.
When you pitch me, please tell me about your choice of packaging and why you feel it's the best choice. You don't have to be perfect, but openness goes a long way. One example I love to cite is Stonyfield Yogurt. When the company came out with its PLA baby yogurt container, it held a webinar for the media to explain every decision that went into creating the packaging and the pros and the cons behind it.
Normally, I wouldn't have blogged about a yogurt in a PLA plastic container, but in this case, I wrote a lengthy post because I appreciated Stonyfield's detailed approach.
Don't just tell me your product is biodegradable. Tell me under what conditions and show me your third party certifications.
"Biodegradable" is a very confusing word and means many different things. First of all, I want to know what your product is made from. Is it made from plants? Or is it a fossil-based plastic with a degradable additive? If it's made from some kind of plastic, has it been tested to ASTM standards? And have those test results been analyzed by an independent third party certifier? What conditions are needed for biodegradation? Commercial compost facility? Backyard compost? Sea water?
And how long does it take to biodegrade under various conditions? A beach toy made from "biodegradable plastic" is no good if it will not biodegrade completely in the marine environment. Oh, and about those degradable additives...what ingredients are in them? I'm still waiting to find a company that will volunteer that information. I've been waiting a long time.
Don't just tell me your product or packaging is recyclable. Tell me how I can recycle it.
Recycling systems are different in every community. Not all communities accept every theoretically recyclable plastic, for example. And consumers get confused by chasing arrows symbols, assuming they can just toss the product in their curbside bin. Do you have a take-back program? Do you practice extended producer responsibility?
I'm much more likely to promote your product if you do. And if you don't, instead of just telling me it's recyclable, please use clarifying language like "Recyclable in most community recycling systems. Check with your municipality to find out whether this product is recyclable where you live."
Don't just tell me your product has a low carbon footprint. Tell me how it's safe for my family.
So many products these days are touted as "green" because they produce fewer carbon emissions to manufacture and ship. But if your product is made with chemicals that could leach out and harm my health, it's not so very green in my book. Once again, transparency is the key to my heart.
A few more tips
After coming up with this list, I polled some other green bloggers to find out what's important to them. Here are a few more things we want to know:
* Do you have organic certifications? Please show us or explain why you are unable to at this time. Sadly, we have found through experience that we can't necessarily rely on the word of producers. Most of you are honest, but the few dishonest companies ruin it for everyone.
* Where is your product made, by whom, and under what conditions?
* If your product is certifed Fair Trade, what is the percentage of Fair Trade ingredients?
* Do you provide full information about ingredients, packaging, and practices on your website? Is the information easy for the average consumer to find?
* How do you give back? What causes do you support?
The bottom line
We don't expect you to be perfect. Some of us are businesspeople ourselves selling our own products. We know there are tradeoffs and every product has an environmental footprint.
But all the bloggers I asked said the same thing. Openness and transparency are more important than anything else. The more we know, the more likely we are to work with you. So provide your PR person with as much information as possible -- and be ready for our questions.
My sense is that companies
My sense is that companies are looking for the greatest common denominator among the least well-informed bloggers. I can't tell you how many times I get irrelevant or ridiculous pitches, just because it was easier for someone to pitch en masse than to actually find out something specific about my blog. It's a waste of time - theirs as well as mine.
For our 5 cents worth, it is
For our 5 cents worth, it is on the packaging. Plastic in particular.
Some one above said don't just say biodegradable. It is a magnificent concept and a disposal mechanism of almost everything up till about 1960 when plastics started to take off. So now the general term biodegradable is really made up of three main and quite different disposal technologies.
1) Landfill biodegradable. As it sounds plastics with a landfill-biodegradable additive in them will anaerobically biodegrade over a number of years into methane and humus. Modern landfills now capture methane to generate electricity.
2) Compostable, this is fast aerobic biodegradation in special commercial compost facilities. This is not your backyard composter as the do not generate enough heat. They produce CO2 hence there is no chance to get the stored energy of the plastic waste. So if you get a compostable bag and want to drive ½ way across the state to drop it off at a commercial compost facility then you can be assure it will biodegrade away.
3) The last one receives a lot of PR but it is mostly a con. Degradable plastics are made by putting an additive in them that starts a slow chemical reaction (not biological) that causes the plastic to fragment into little pieces over a couple of years. It only works on plastics up on top of the ground not in landfills as it needs oxygen to work. There are so many criticisms of degradable plastics as causing a worse environmental problem. But they have good salesman it seems that lead people on to think degradable is really biodegradable and it works in a landfill too.
So to be correct whenever a manufacturer says their product or packaging is biodegradable they ought to say biodegradable where and tell the consumer how to dispose of it. Not that that would really help too much either. If you don’t have a commercial compost facility at you street end where are you going to put you compostable plastic waste? In the trash more than likely as compostable plastics cannot be recycled. If you have a degradable plastic, how would you dispose of that? Again trash is the only answer, as they too cannot be mainstream recycled as they would contaminate other products with the degradable additive. Only landfill-biodegradable plastics (which can be recycled mainstream) seem to make sense as the too will go to trash if not recycled. Then once in a landfill they will start to biodegrade away.
My biggest pet peeve is
My biggest pet peeve is undisclosed ingredients. When someone pitches a product to me as non-toxic or green, I'm always surprised when they don't disclose the ingredients. Sometimes I write back asking for the ingredients, but usually I don't bother. Also, I wish "green" companies would figure out that many of us are steering clear of anything with "fragrance" now. I get the trade secret thing, but if you don't want to tell me what exactly is in a product, I don't want to buy it. Great post, Beth.
Thank you for writing about
Thank you for writing about this important topic Beth. Transparency is key from the get-go. Also, to all who pitch to bloggers: please take the time to find out our names. It's so much more meaningful to get a pitch from a brand who has done a small amount of research and know a little about you.
Hello Beth and props for the
Hello Beth and props for the article, also the passion you write with.
As a sustainedness (sustainability void of doubts and hesitation) thinker and doer I have long been appalled by (big box) retailers' practice over here in Europe, too, that they dare call their plastic shopping bags biodegradable without mentioning anything about the ink dyes printed on the bags(even if it's a monochromatic design solution). Do they biodegrade as well? And how about clarifying the origins of the plant based raw material of the bag? Ironically we might well be swinging with ignorant pride a bag manufactured of GMO corn starch, printed over with GMO soy ink.
You know, I would take the issue of transparency even further and claim that there should no longer exist such a thing as proprietary information! I mean it.
Thank you for the
Thank you for the comprehensive list and explanations - we'd love to link to it from our media kit. It is critical for businesses to understand that consumers are becoming more and more informed each day and will no longer tolerate "proprietary" answers, greenwashing or lack of transparency about how their products affect our families' health and the health of the environment.
Hello Beth and props for the
Hello Beth and props for the article, also the passion you write with.
As a sustainedness (sustainability void of doubts and hesitation) thinker and doer I have long been appalled by (big box) retailers' practice over here in Europe, too, that they dare call their plastic shopping bags biodegradable without mentioning anything about the ink dyes printed on the bags(even if it's a monochromatic design solution). Do they biodegrade as well? And how about clarifying the origins of the plant based raw material of the bag? Ironically we might well be swinging with ignorant pride a bag manufactured of GMO corn starch, printed over with GMO soy ink.
You know, I would take the issue of transparency even further and claim that there should no longer exist such a thing as proprietary information! I mean it.
Great article Beth! It is so
Great article Beth! It is so infuriating when you like the sound of a product only to find out they are tricking you with clever ingredients names. I just read today about how they wanted to change "High Fructose Corn Syrup" to "Corn Sugar". Sounds nice doesn't it. Still the same sweet poison we know and hate. Thanks for getting these ideas to the folks that needs to hear from us.