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Düsseldorf (dpa) - Organic milk in a supposed cardboard box or washing-up liquid in a plastic bottle is "easy to recycle": Many consumer goods manufacturers are now using "green" packaging to attract customers.

But the packaging is often not as environmentally friendly as the customers believe due to the eco-marketing, warned the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer center on Monday.

The consumer center classified beverage cartons in the "waste paper look", such as those used by some suppliers for organic milk, as particularly problematic.

“With such products, consumers assumed that the packaging then belonged in the waste paper.

Beverage cartons are made of composite materials that have to be disposed of in the yellow sack, ”criticizes Philip Heldt, environmental expert at the consumer center in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Outer packaging made from sustainable paper - for example toothpaste - merely suggested special ecological qualities.

Because the additional wrapping of the plastic tube is unnecessary and uses up additional resources.

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The consumer advocates rated statements such as “recyclable packaging” or “easy to recycle” on packaging as a “marketing trick”.

«Here advertising is taken for granted.

According to the law, packaging must be manufactured in such a way that it can be reused or recycled, ”said Heidt.

On the other hand, the experts gave a positive rating to drugstore products whose packaging actually contained a very high proportion of recycled plastic (more than 90 percent).

Just a few weeks ago, the Naturschutzbund Deutschland complained in a study that packaged fruit and vegetables were causing ever larger mountains of rubbish.

According to the Nabu study, 60 percent of fruit and vegetables are currently sold packaged.

This resulted in over 103,000 tons of packaging waste in 2019.

That is around 10,000 tons more than in 2016.

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(NOTE: Correction of the notification from November 16, 2020: The first sentence there said “Made for recycling”. The consumer advice center has now corrected this wording: The criticism is not aimed at the term, which is a trademarked name of the Albanian Subsidiary Interseroh is that companies are allowed to use after testing the recyclability of their products.)

Message from the consumer advice center NRW

Nabu study