Learn › How to spot greenwashing
The hardest part of going plastic-free isn't finding "eco" products — it's that the word costs nothing to print. We vet products for a living, and these are the patterns we see most. The one-sentence rule: trust the materials list, never the front of the package.
The clearest example is premium tea. Several brands sell "plant-based" or "plastic-free" mesh pyramid tea bags that are actually PLA — a bioplastic spun from corn starch. PLA is plant-derived, but it's still a polymer mesh, it's precisely the format the McGill study measured shedding billions of particles into a cup, and it only breaks down in industrial composting facilities, not in your garden or the ocean. When we vetted tea bags for our catalog, we excluded a well-known brand for exactly this — PLA mesh marketed as plastic-free — and flagged another that uses a smaller PLA heat-seal with an honest note instead of a hidden one.
"Eco-friendly," "natural," "green," "non-toxic," "sustainable" — none of these words has a legal definition on a product label in the US. The FTC's Green Guides advise marketers against unqualified claims, but they're guidance, not a certification. Words that do carry real weight are specific and checkable: GOTS-certified organic cotton, FSC-certified wood, an exact materials breakdown like "100% organic cotton" rather than "made with organic cotton."
Recycled polyester ("rPET") is genuinely better for the waste stream than virgin polyester — and it still sheds microplastic fibers in the wash exactly like new polyester does. A sock that's "75% organic cotton" can quietly carry 16% recycled polyester in the fine print. For anything worn on skin or touching food, recycled plastic solves a different problem than the one you're trying to solve.
Unless a product names its material — cork, waxed canvas, mushroom leather — "vegan leather" almost always means plastic (polyurethane or PVC). Vegan and plastic-free are different claims; plenty of products are one and not the other.
Clothing marketed on its cotton or wool routinely carries nylon and elastane that only the fabric tag admits to — we've found "organic cotton" socks that were 10% nylon once we read the composition. Blends exist for good reasons (stretch, durability), but a brand that leads with the natural fiber and buries the synthetic is telling you which fact it thinks would change your mind.
How we handle this at Purra: every product must name its exact materials, and the awkward facts go in the listing, not in a footnote. Silicone in our catalog is described as sand-derived and microplastic-free and named as a synthetic — both true. When a whole category has no genuinely plastic-free option with real reviews, we say so and leave the shelf empty rather than padding it — it's why we carry no headphones and dropped blenders entirely. The full standard is on our methodology page.
Once you start reading materials lists, the pattern-matching gets fast: a real claim names a material and a percentage; a marketing claim names a feeling. If you'd rather not do the reading yourself, that's the job our guides and the Purra app exist to do for you.