Examples of ECM Plastics in a sentence
Robert Sinclair admitted many ECM customers inquired about how long it would take ECM Plastics to biodegrade.
Specifically, the FTC complains of four claims: 1) ECM Plastics are biodegradable;2) ECM Plastics are biodegradable in a landfill; 3) ECM Plastics biodegrade in a stated qualified timeframe (nine months to five years OR greater than one year); and4) ECM Plastics have been shown to be biodegradable, biodegradable in a landfill, or biodegradable in a stated qualified timeframe under various scientific tests, including, but not limited to, ASTM D5511.
In support of its remarkable claims, ECM drums up an equally fantastical mechanism of action to explain how ECM Plastics will biodegrade to completion.
For those customers who saw the nine months to five years claim at any point in time, the net impression clearly would be that ECM Plastics would degrade within five years.
Its website, brochure, flyers, logos, certificate, and presentations have conveyed that ECM Plastics will completely biodegrade in less than five years in a landfill, and that scientific testing proves it.
Some of ECM’s materials make its biodegradable claims from presentations as simple as a logo consisting of a tree and the words “ECM Biodegradable.” We do not find that such materials convey a claim that testing by independent labs prove that ECM Plastics are biodegradable.
Our facial analysis and this extrinsic evidence support the finding that ECM’s representation – that ECM Plastics biodegrade “in some period greater than a year” – conveys the implied claim to reasonable consumers that ECM Plastics fully biodegrade in landfills within a reasonably short period of time, i.e., a period close to a year and no more than five years.
Accordingly, we find that Complaint Counsel have shown by a preponderance of the evidence that ECM made the implied claim that ECM Plastics will completely break down in landfills within a reasonably short period of time, i.e., within five years.
Commissioner Ohlhausen dissents from this opinion to the extent it holds that Complaint Counsel provided evidence sufficient to prove that ECM’s unqualified biodegradability claim conveyed to consumers that ECM Plastics will completely biodegrade within a landfill within a reasonably short period of time.
In the course of its marketing to direct customers, ECM made a series of claims about the biodegradability of ECM Plastics.