Insights by Connor Fraser (Napoli Student Fellow in Environmental Law & Policy, Guarini Center)

Connor Fraser is a third-year student at NYU Law. He is the Napoli Student Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy at NYU’s Guarini Center, and his research focuses on domestic environmental law and plastic pollution.

  • Blog Line art of items such as trash cans, recycling bins, trash bags, tin cans, boxes, and a recycling symbol. The lines are black, and the recycling symbol is filled in with green.

    Reduce, Reuse, and Reinvigorate the FTC’s Green Guides

    Student Blog Series

    You may not think twice about tossing a plastic bottle in a blue recycling bin, but there’s more to the “recyclable” label than meets the consumer’s eye. Behind that label is a complex set of guidelines—the FTC’s Green Guides—that should, but often don’t, guide when and how marketers can tell consumers that their products are recyclable, and they are finally being reviewed after a decade without updates.

  • Issue Briefs Green, blue, yellow, and red plastic nurdles spread out on a surface; negative space forms the chasing-arrows recycling symbol.

    What’s in a Label? The FTC’s Green Guides in Context

    The Federal Trade Commission is considering updating its Green Guides for the first time on over a decade; this comes at a crucial time, as research and litigation have revealed ambiguities in the Guides’ definitions of “recyclable” and other environmental labels, leading to consumer confusion. This brief explains what the Green Guides contain, how the FTC plans to reevaluate them, the interplay between the Guides and state consumer protection laws, and how this interplay affects regulation of “recyclable” labels.

  • Blog A posterized black, white, grey, and gold graphic showing rows and rows of plastic water bottles in the foreground, an text relating to plastics litigation in the midground, and a courthouse in the background.

    Plastics in the Courtroom: The Evolution of Plastics Litigation

    Student Blog Series
    This post introduces the State Impact Center and Guarini’s new Plastics Litigation Tracker, which tracks state and federal cases addressing plastics, and discusses four major trends evident in plastics litigation thus far.