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Recycled Bag Claims NZ: How to Avoid Greenwashing

Date: 16-10-2026
Blogs Environmental Sustainability

 

How to Check a Recycled Bag Claim: A Buyer’s Guide for NZ Businesses

“Recycled” can mean very different things on a bag label. If you’re buying for an organisation with an environmental policy, it pays to ask. Under the Fair Trading Act, claims about a product can’t be misleading, and the Commerce Commission publishes guidance on environmental claims. A good supplier will welcome your questions.

Seven questions to ask any supplier

  1. What is the recycled material? Used pallet wrap, factory offcuts, household soft plastics? “Recycled plastic” alone doesn’t say.
  2. How much of the bag is recycled? 100%, or a blend? Get the number.
  3. Where is the plastic recycled and the bag made? In New Zealand, or imported?
  4. What’s the thickness? Recycled doesn’t have to mean weak, but check the micron (mu) rating.
  5. Can you explain the process? A real supplier can walk you through it.
  6. Are the figures backed up? Be wary of precise carbon or waste numbers with no source.
  7. What do I get to show for it? A paper trail, a statement, a certificate.

Our answers for Best Purple Recycled Bags

  1. Material: used pallet wrap, collected from our warehouses and from our customers’ deliveries.
  2. Recycled content: 100% recycled plastic, a mix of post-consumer and post-industrial used pallet wrap.
  3. Where: recycled and made in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
  4. Thickness: 30mu (60L, 80L and 240L) and 33mu (120L).
  5. Process: the wrap is compacted into 60kg blocks, then cleaned, melted and made into bags, which return to us. See How a Pallet Wrap Becomes a Rubbish Bag.
  6. Figures: we don’t claim carbon savings we can’t prove.
  7. Proof: customers using Best Purple receive a Certificate of Positive Environmental Impact. Read more in From Environmental Policy to Action.

Why we’re telling you this

We’d rather you ask hard questions and choose us for the answers. If any supplier can’t answer these seven, keep looking.

Our complete guide to recycled rubbish bags has the sizes and details. Shop Best Purple Recycled Bags or open a trade account.

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