Open Letter: Urgent Appeal to Unilever: Be a Sustainability Leader. Phase Out Plastic Sachets NOW!

Dear Mr Schumacher,

(Incoming Chief Executive Officer, Unilever Plc)

Congratulations on your new role as Chief Executive Officer of Unilever. We represent organizations from around the world, writing to you in solidarity with communities from across Asia-Pacific who bear the devastating consequences of Unilever’s sachet-fueled business model, and are urging you to phase out plastic sachets.

Touted as a viable, affordable option for low-income communities, sachets have replaced existing traditional reuse-refill models. Yet from its production to the end of its life, the true cost of sachets has been borne by low-income communities residing in "sacrifice zones" near production/petrochemical facilities, waste pickers who are tasked with recovering these packets, and those living near cement kilns where sachets are burned as fuel. Global opinion polls indicate that people want single-use plastics banned. Sachets, as single-use products, are not a necessity, and communities are willing to transition away if only they were provided a safe alternative.

Unilever has committed to making all plastic packaging, including sachets, reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025. If sachets continue to be a part of Unilever’s business model, your company will fail to meet its New Plastic Economy Global Commitment targets, which could reflect poorly on the company's much-lauded sustainability claims.

Unilever's ex-CEO and executives have openly recognized the problems associated with sachet waste. Mr Jope said, “We have to get rid of them (sachets),” and emphasized, “It's pretty much impossible to mechanically recycle and so it's got no real value.” Hanneke Faber added, “(sachets are) evil because you cannot recycle it.”

Yet instead of implementing effective measures, Unilever has so far pursued questionable solutions, leading to further environmental and health damage. Despite Unilever claiming to support recycling infrastructure, large quantities of collected sachets end up in cement kilns for incineration, a practice that causes air pollution for local communities and produces significant GHG emissions (ref 1, ref 2). This practice is funded and enabled by some subsidiaries as part of their plastic neutrality goals, raising concerns about the company's true commitment to addressing sachet pollution.

Unilever's pursuit of unproven technologies, such as CreaSolv, has also yielded unfavourable results, with the company silently shutting down its pilot facility in Indonesia. Mr Jope acknowledged the challenges associated with the CreaSolv solution, yet Unilever seems committed to more chemical recycling experiments.

Recently, Paul Polman, former Unilever CEO, wrote, “We also made mistakes [...] We sold products in sachets because they’re more affordable for people on lower incomes, and we believed they could be carefully dealt with afterward. But despite our best efforts, and lord knows we tried, packaging this small and with such little value has proved impossible to collect at scale, let alone recycle. We need to get rid of harmful sachets for good.”

As the new leader of a top plastic-polluting corporation, you have the chance to undo decades of harm. Unilever can lead the way so others follow, and show the world that consumer goods can be sold without damaging packaging like sachets. It’s time to make right Unilever’s sustainability commitments by focusing on plastic reduction, quitting sachets and investing in refill-reuse systems as a replacement. 

As you take the helm at Unilever, the signatories of this letter call on you to also take the lead in correcting the historic wrongs in Unilever’s single-use sachet business model. Unilever can lead the way by:

• Recognizing the real problem: Unilever's own executives have acknowledged the issues with sachet waste and its inability to be recycled. Stop pursuing ineffective solutions and face the reality that sachets are harmful to human and environmental health and cannot be safely managed. It's time to take decisive action and phase them out completely.
• Scaling up real solutions: Unilever has tried a multitude of ineffective and harmful solutions - recycling schemes, unproven technologies, cement kiln burning and community waste recovery projects - to try to deal with sachet pollution and yet the problem remains. It’s time to increase investment in reuse and refill systems that can be affordable and accessible to all without environmental and human health costs.
• Aligning actions with commitments: focus on plastic reduction, quit sachets, invest and scale up refill-reuse models and embrace sustainable packaging alternatives so that your own voluntary targets can be achieved. We hope to see Unilever leading the way among businesses by spearheading a model that aligns with your company's stated aims for the Global Plastic Treaty (ref: Page 3), without waiting for the treaty to be finalized by late 2024. The communities we represent across Asia cannot wait any longer for an end to sachet pollution.

The undersigned organizations look forward to working with you and your teams to find positive solutions to the scourge of sachets, and we are excited for Unilever to show real leadership on this issue.

Be the first mover, Unilever. #QuitSachets!

Sincerely,

Break Free From Plastic

LIST OF SIGNATORIES:

These 117 organisations, representing 44 countries and territories from around the world, are a part of Break Free From Plastic.

#breakfreefromplastic is a global movement envisioning a future free from plastic pollution. Since its launch in 2016, more than 2,500 organisations representing millions of supporters around the world have joined the movement to demand massive reductions in single-use plastics and push for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis. BFFP member organisations and individuals share the shared values of environmental protection and social justice and work together through a holistic approach to bring about systemic change. This means tackling plastic pollution across the whole plastics value chain—from extraction to disposal—focusing on prevention rather than cure and providing effective solutions. www.breakfreefromplastic.org.