‘Organic’ can be hazy for non-food items

WASHINGTON — There’s a strict set of standards for organic foods. But the rules are looser for household cleaners, textiles, cosmetics and the organic dry cleaners down the street.

Wander through the grocery store and check out the shelves where some detergents, hand lotions and clothing proclaim organic bona fides.

Absent an Agriculture Department seal or certification, there are few ways to tell if those organic claims are bogus.

A shopper’s only recourse is to do his or her own research.

“The consumer should not need a law degree to read a label,” says Laura Batcha, president of the Organic Trade Association, the industry’s main trade group. Concerned about the image of organics, the association is pressuring the government to better investigate organic claims on non-food items.

Soap to T-shirts

According to the Organic Trade Association, sales of those non-food organic products were about $2.8 billion last year, a small share of the overall organic market but growing rapidly. Among the most popular items: household cleaners, cosmetics, gardening products, clothing, sheets and mattresses.

USDA doesn’t regulate any of those items, though, unless they’re made entirely from food or agriculture products overseen by its National Organic Program. That’s when they can carry the familiar “USDA organic” seal or other official USDA certification.

The rules are murkier when the items have ingredients that aren’t regulated by USDA, like chemicals in soaps or makeup. The department doesn’t police the use of the word organic for non-food items, as it does with food. Some examples: » Personal-care products. Companies can brand any personal-care product as organic with little USDA oversight as long as they don’t use the USDA organic seal or certification. Retailers such as Whole Foods Market have stepped in with their own standards requiring organic body-care items sold at their stores to be certified. There’s also a private certification called NSF/ANSI 305, but most consumers don’t know to look for that label.

» Clothing, sheets and mattresses made from organic cotton or other orga- nic fibers. Some items are certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard, a third-party verification organization that reviews how the products are manufactured. Like body care, most consumers don’t know about it.

» Gardening products. Some gardening products may be approved by USDA for use in organic agriculture, but not be certified organic themselves.

There are clear standards for items within the scope of USDA’s regulation, says Miles McEvoy, the head of department’s National Organic Program. “The areas that are outside of our scope could cause some confusion.”

Through government cracks

The Federal Trade Commission normally investigates deceptive claims. But the agency demurred in its “Green Guides” published in 2012, saying enforcement of organic claims on non-food products could duplicate USDA duties.

The FTC says a claim is deceptive only if it misleads consumers, so it needs to study consumer perceptions of the word organic. The agency has proposed a study, but officials weren’t able to say when it might begin.

The Organic Trade Association’s Batcha says the lack of enforcement could erode confidence in the organic industry as a whole. The industry has been fighting overuse of the word “natural,” which has no legal meaning at all.

Ken Cook, head of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group that publishes online consumer databases on cosmetics and cleaning, is blunt: “Companies are chasing the consumers and the government is in the rear-view mirror.”

Organic dry cleaners

Some dry cleaners promote “organic” on their windows and in stores, but there is no legal definition for that practice.

Mary Scalco, CEO of the industry group Drycleaning and Laundry Institute, said some of those businesses may actually be using petroleum-based solutions, which are not generally perceived as organic by the general public.

“The difficult part is the scientific meaning of organic and the consumer perception of the word,” she says.

Scalco says she is telling member companies to make sure their customers know what organic means.

“Because there is no real regulation on this right now, you want to make sure you don’t mislead the public,” she says.