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Unqualified is the word doing the work in the Federal Trade Commission's Green Guides. Some claims the guides advise against making at all. For many others the advice is to qualify the claim, and the guides then say how that is done. Under 16 CFR 260.3(a), qualifications and disclosures "should be clear, prominent, and understandable."¹ Marketers "should use plain language and sufficiently large type, should place disclosures in close proximity to the qualified claim," and should avoid inconsistent statements or distracting elements "that could undercut or contradict the disclosure."¹

The qualification is not free text

For a recyclable claim the guides supply the sentence and grade it against a number. Where recycling facilities reach "a substantial majority" of consumers or communities where the item is sold, an unqualified claim is available, and the guides define that phrase as "at least 60 percent."² Below that figure the guides say marketers "should qualify all recyclable claims," and they offer wording that varies in strength with availability.²

Three of those specimens appear in the text. Where facilities are available to slightly less than a substantial majority, the guides give two forms of words.² A marketer may state that the product "may not be recyclable in your area," or that recycling facilities for it "may not exist in your area."² Where facilities reach only a few consumers, the guides call for a stronger clarification and give one: "This product [package] is recyclable only in the few communities that have appropriate recycling facilities."²

Where a claim points, and what counts as minor

Section 260.3(b) asks something further of the same sentence. Unless context makes it clear, a claim "should specify whether it refers to the product, the product's packaging, a service, or just to a portion" of any of them.¹ The guides work the point through two examples. A plastic package around a shower curtain labeled "recyclable" gives no context for which of the two the word describes.¹ The claim is then deceptive "if any part of either the package or the curtain, other than minor, incidental components, cannot be recycled."¹ A soft drink bottle labeled "recycled" is not deceptive where only the cap is excluded, the cap being a minor, incidental component.¹

The same distinction governs recycled content. An unqualified claim is available where the entire product or package, "excluding minor, incidental components," is made from recycled material.³ Where an item is partly recycled, the marketer "should clearly and prominently qualify the claim to avoid deception about the amount or percentage, by weight, of recycled content."³

A second number, behind a second adjective

Degradable claims carry their own line. Section 260.8(c) provides that an unqualified degradable claim for an item entering the solid waste stream is deceptive if the item does not "completely decompose within one year after customary disposal."⁴ The same paragraph adds that unqualified degradable claims for items customarily disposed in landfills, incinerators, and recycling facilities "are deceptive because these locations do not present conditions" for complete decomposition within a year.⁴ Degradable claims "should be qualified clearly and prominently" to address the environment where the item is customarily disposed and "the rate and extent of degradation."⁴

The claim the guides advise against making unqualified

General environmental benefit claims are treated differently from the specific ones. Section 260.4(b) states that marketers "should not make unqualified general environmental benefit claims," because such claims likely convey far-reaching benefits that marketers are unlikely to be able to substantiate.⁵ Paragraph (c) provides that marketers "can qualify general environmental benefit claims to prevent deception," using "clear and prominent qualifying language that limits the claim to a specific benefit or benefits."⁵

Paragraph 260.4(d) closes a route that looks like a fix. Even where the marketer explains a specific attribute and has substantiation for it, "this explanation will not adequately qualify a general environmental benefit claim if the advertisement otherwise implies deceptive claims."⁵ Section 260.1(d) puts the same point generally: whether a claim is deceptive "will depend on the net impression of the advertisement, label, or other promotional material at issue."⁶

A seal is a claim in a small space

Section 260.6(d) applies the general benefit rule to certifications and seals. A seal that does not convey the basis for the certification, "either through the name or some other means," likely conveys a general environmental benefit, and the guides advise against using one.⁷ Paragraph (c) adds that third-party certification "does not eliminate a marketer's obligation to ensure that it has substantiation for all claims reasonably communicated by the certification."⁷ Under paragraph (e), qualifying language should convey that the seal "refers only to specific and limited benefits."⁷

Substantiation belongs to the marketer

Anything sent to us is kept private. Substantiation stays with the marketer throughout. The evidence behind a claim, the composition of the product, and the scope of a certifier's certificate are the client's to establish with its own advisors. None of the three is answerable from the page, and no editor answers it.

Reading is what is left, and on this material the reading is largely positional. A qualification has a distance from the claim it qualifies and a size relative to it, and both are measurable on the page. Copy set around a claim carries statements of its own, and one of those may contradict the claim. The word "recyclable" standing unqualified points at the facility-access figure the client supplied, and "degradable" points at the disposal route the client named.