Commercial plastics claiming biodegradable status: Is this also accurate for marine environments?

Concerns about plastic pollution and global public policies have encouraged consumers to acquire environmentally friendly products. Thus, products made of biodegradable plastics have been preferred by the public, despite their costs. However, greenwashing practices, promising more environmental benefits than the products actually offer, has become frequent. Nevertheless, no studies assessing the occurrence of greenwashing in commercial plastic products sold in large world economies have been performed. The present study aimed to experimentally evaluate alterations in structure and chemical composition of selected plastic products marketed in Canada, USA and Brazil. The aging experiments carried out by seawater immersion for 180 days showed no evidence of degradation in 4 out of the 6 studied samples, despite product claims of biodegradability or 100% degradability status. This finding denotes unequivocal greenwashing practices, even including bags made of polyethylene, an ordinary non-biodegradable polymer. Thus, the inadequate adoption of green marketing is deceiving to consumers and may lead to improper disposal of these materials. These practices are highly counterproductive in view of the global public policies recently adopted to control plastic pollution. Therefore, considering the technologies currently available for identification of polymers, a strict control should be exercised over products that claim biodegradable status.