FRUSTRATION FRIDAY
Every Friday I will have special posts that point out products or situations that frustrate me in my quest to go plastic-free. Many of these posts will be about products that use greenwashing–trying to look like sustainable, plastic-saving products but actually still using plastic, or trying to frame their plastic use in a misleading way.
Today’s Frustration Friday post features new dental products from CVS. I found this package of two bamboo toothbrushes in a typical plastic blister package alongside PLA plastic floss picks in a plastic pouch. While I certainly support private label offerings of sustainable and plastic-free products, the Live Better line at CVS appears to be a broad greenwashing effort. The somewhat vague tagline for the brand on the CVS website is:
Trusted & Transparent
Live Better™ by CVS Health® brings you trusted and transparent wellness products. Filled with purpose and consciously selected, our products help you stay well and simply live better.
CVS doesn’t actually make any concrete claims about sustainability or natural/organic products in this tagline. And with most of the Live Better products packaged in plastic, plastic-free is certainly not their primary aim. However, I find the claims on these products to be misleading.
The bamboo toothbrushes are frustrating for two reasons. First, a good quality, reasonably priced, bamboo toothbrush in plastic-free package at mainstream retailers would be a win. Why not put this product in a paperboard box like other bamboo brushes? Second, the BPA-free and biodegradable handle claims made on the package so flagrantly ignore the plastic packaging, potentially misleading the consumer.
The claims on the floss picks package are similarly misleading. Plastic made from cornstarch, also called PLA, is probably better than plastic from fossil fuels. But the reality is that the majority of this plastic ends up in landfills and does not break down, in the same way that other plastics don’t break down. If composted in a commercial compost facility, PLA plastic will eventually breakdown into harmless byproducts, but only a small percentage of PLA plastic ends up in commercial compost. And like the toothbrushes, these floss picks are packaged in plastic.
With a little more effort, CVS could make truly plastic-free products to help their customers “simply live better.”