Unilever’s Plastic Playbook
By Joe Brock and John Geddie | June 22, 2022 | Reuters
Two years ago, Unilever plc Chief Executive Alan Jope said his company would get rid of the tiny plastic packets it uses to sell single servings of shampoo, toothpaste and other basics because of the widespread pollution this packaging creates.
These palm-sized pouches, known as sachets, are commonly associated with ketchup or cosmetics samples in wealthy countries. But they have exploded across the developing world where they are used to sell everything from laundry detergent to seasoning and snacks to low-income households.
They have also helped fuel a global waste crisis. Made of layers of plastic and aluminum, sachets are nearly impossible to recycle and aren’t biodegradable. They’re littering neighborhoods, jamming garbage dumps, choking waterways and harming wild creatures. Yet even as Unilever executives have publicly decried the environmental harm done by this packaging, the multinational has worked to undercut laws aimed at eliminating sachets in at least three Asian countries, Reuters has learned.
In Sri Lanka, the company pressed the government to reconsider a proposed sachet ban, then tried to maneuver around it once regulations were imposed, a senior environmental official told Reuters. In India and the Philippines, Unilever lobbied against proposed sachet bans that were later dropped by lawmakers, sources directly involved said.
London-based Unilever declined to comment on the company’s lobbying activities in these markets and said it adheres to Sri Lankan law. A spokesperson said the firm is “phasing out” multilayered sachets by using a variety of potential fixes, including product refill systems, new recycling technology and packaging material that’s easier to recycle.
Unilever, the maker of hundreds of household brands including Dove soap, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, first marketed plastic sachets on a mass scale in India in the 1980s. The consumer giant remains among the biggest users of this packaging, and other companies have followed suit. Now, 855 billion plastic sachets are sold every year industry-wide, enough to cover the entire surface of Earth, according to A Plastic Planet, a London-based environmental group.
In recent years, Unilever has become a vocal critic of sachets.
The multilayered design of the packages is “evil because you cannot recycle it,” Hanneke Faber, Unilever’s President for Global Food & Refreshments, said in a 2019 investor presentation.
