Three plastic shopping bag manufacturers have launched a lawsuit for misleading advertising claims against a small reusable bag manufacturer.

The plastic shopping bag manufacturers claim in documents filed in Federal court in South Carolina that textile reusable bag manufacturer ChicoBag is making false and misleading claims including:

• the cloth bag only needs to be used 11 times to have a lower environmental impact than 11 disposable bags
• that only 1% of plastic bags are recycled
• that somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year
• that “the world’s largest landfill can be found floating between Hawaii and San Francisco”
• that “each year hundreds of thousands of sea birds and marine life die from ingestable plastics mistaken for food”

The Plaintiffs in this case, who claim that the false and/or misleading statements by ChicoBag have caused them irreparable injury, are Hilex Poly Company, LLC., Superbag Operating, Ltd., and Advance Polybag, Inc. The claims made in the civil action have not yet been proven in court.

Unless settled earlier, the case will go to trial in the first quarter of 2012.

The Plaintiff’s complaint and the Defendant’s Answer can be found at http://plasticbaglaws.org/litigation/hilex-poly-et-al-v-chicobag/

The Court has ordered that certain documents in this case may be designated as confidential.