This page governs every claim, badge, and piece of copy MPFREE or a licensee publishes about a certification — on this site, in the registry API, on packaging, and in licensee marketing. It is enforced in code, not just written down: see lib/claims.ts, which every applicant-submitted name and public claim string is checked against before it can render. This page governs the words; the Seal Usage Policy governs the mark itself — approved artwork, placement, and what a licensee must do when a certification is suspended or revoked.
“MPFREE” identifies conformance to the MPFREE Standard — a defined, tested, and published set of thresholds (see the Standards page). It is not a representation that a product contains zero microplastics in an absolute sense, because no analytical method can demonstrate absolute zero. This mirrors how “USDA Organic” denotes conformance to a standard, not an absolute-purity claim.
The following may not appear in any consumer-facing surface — marketing copy, product pages, JSON-LD description fields, API response text, or packaging guidance to licensees:
Every claim must be scoped to method and matrix. Short-form UI copy (“MPFREE Certified”) is permitted only where a link to the full scoped claim is one click away — the registry page, the verify API response, or the QR landing page.
“100% Microplastic-Free Spring Water”
“Verified below the MPFREE Standard v1 detection limit for beverages, tested by µFTIR, Raman microspectroscopy & Py-GC-MS.”
Where “free of” style language is used at all — for instance, in a tier name — it must be paired, at first use on any page, with a footnote stating that certification means content is below the stated, validated detection limit, not that none is present. This is consistent with how “free-of” claims are treated under the FTC Green Guides.
Because the registry is global, claim language is written to the stricter of the major applicable regimes at each point of conflict:
Claims must be substantiated, scoped, and not overstated — a bare 'free-of' claim is only permitted where trace amounts, if present, don't exceed background levels or cause the harm a reasonable consumer associates with the substance [1].
The proposed Green Claims Directive — which would have required independent verification of environmental claims — is currently stalled and its final status is unresolved [2]. This policy does not treat its specific substantiation mechanics as settled law. Separately, the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive is already adopted and binding from September 27, 2026, regardless of the Green Claims Directive's outcome — that Directive's general anti-greenwashing direction is treated as the operative floor.
This page defines a defensible internal claims policy modeled on public FTC and EU guidance. It is not a substitute for qualified legal counsel — anyone relying on a certification commercially should have final claim copy, the licensee agreement, and the revocation/appeals process reviewed by counsel in their own jurisdiction before publication.