For the second time this year, the UK Advertising Standards Authority has slapped an installing company on the wrist for making false or misleading claims.
Earlier this year, ASA ruled against installing company Evergreen UK for claiming that synthetic turf was purified and eco-friendly. You can read the full article here.
Recently, ASA banned an ad by a company called Perfectly Green. The company had tweeted that its Soul Eco-grass was recyclable. Environmental group Plastics Rebellion took offense at the claim.
While Perfectly Green pointed out that the polyethylene yarn and polypropylene backing can be recycled by pyrolysis or gasification, ASA ruled that the ad was misleading.
According to ASA, the name would make customers think that the product was environmentally friendly.
ASA also pointed out that the product didn’t have a disclaimer noting the difficulties posed to the recycling of the product due to its mixed composition. A lack of existing infrastructure in the UK to process it once it had reached the end of its life cycle was a second reason for ASA to decide to call the ad misleading.
The latter is slightly incorrect, as Sportex Group in Scotland started processing end-of-life turf in 2020.