Descriptions of coffee pods as “compostable eco capsules” were misleading as they could not be composted at home, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled.
The ASA has banned adverts by Lavazza UK and Dualit, which both made claims about the eco credentials of their coffee products.
Lavazza described its coffee pods as “compostable” and “eco caps”, but they can only be disposed of in such an eco friendly way during an industrial process. The company, defending its advert, said “compostable” would be understood as meaning that a product was made of compostable material, and not necessarily that it was compostable in domestic compost.
However, the ASA ruled it “gave consumers the misleading impression that their coffee pods could be composted at home, when in fact they could only be composted in an industrial setting”.
Home composting and the industrial process are very different. At home, a compost bin in the garden is used, and the process is fairly slow, with not every item being able to biodegrade effectively. Industrial processes use specialised equipment and specific temperature and humidity levels, which breaks down waste much more quickly meaning a wider range of items can be disposed of.
Similarly, a paid-for search ad for Dualit claimed its coffee bags were “compostable”, which the ASA said implied they could be composted domestically when that was not the case.
The company said its coffee bags had been certified as industrially compostable and were made from polylactic acid, a material derived from sugars extracted from plants and ground coffee. They argued consumers would interpret “compostable coffee bags” to mean the bags were made from a compostable material, and would not assume they were home compostable.
The ASA rejected this, ruling that consumers would think products described as “compostable” were compostable at home.
The ASA said: “We believed that people would understand from the claim ‘compostable’, in the context of a consumer product for use in the home, that these products could be composted at home. As this wasn’t the case, we found that the ads were misleading and so we’ve banned them.
“We know that when it comes to making purchasing decisions, the public are keen to make choices with the environment in mind. It’s important that brands are clear about how easy it is to dispose of products in an environmentally friendly way, so people aren’t misled.”
Lavazza and Dualit have been contacted for comment.
