The Problem With Sachets and Crisp Packets

Single-use soft plastics, such as sachets and crisp packets, are produced on a massive scale but are nearly impossible to recycle. Inadequate investment in waste management results in these plastics ending up in rivers, oceans, streets, and backyards across the world.

The trouble with sachets…

Soft plastics - defined as flexible plastic materials that do not hold a specific shape - are produced from natural gas or fossil fuels that are extracted from shale (a rock composed of clay, silt, mud, and organic matter) in a process called ‘fracking’. This process is cheap, allowing major brands such as Unilever, Wings, Procter & Gamble, and Nestlé to produce them at extremely high volumes. An estimated 855 billion sachets are sold globally every year.

Multiple layers

Sachets and crisp packets are made of multiple layers of different materials such as plastic film, aluminium, and paper. This makes them difficult to recycle, non-reusable, and almost impossible to manage in waste processing systems. In the 2023 #BreakFreeFromPlastic Brand Audit, Unilever, Wings, Procter & Gamble, and Nestlé were amongst the top ten sachet polluters in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam — countries where sachets are sold and where waste is often sent for management. There, collecting, sorting, and incinerating soft plastic waste becomes the responsibility of poorly-funded local communities, rather than the plastic-producing companies themselves. 

Greenwash

Although brands advertise sachets as beneficial and essential for reaching low-income consumers, this messaging is misleading and ignores the cost these consumers pay in the form of waste management and pollution.

The sheer amount of sachet supply has also bred an unsustainable consumer behaviour where we are both dependent on the immediacy of single-use products, as well as apathetic to the significant impacts these plastics have around the world.

To create a fairer and safer world for everyone, we must ensure both the financial and ethical consequences of single-use soft plastic creation and disposal falls on the companies that profit from these plastics. Organisations, advocates, and consumers around the world are calling for legislation, policies, and treaties that hold these corporations accountable.

Read more about sachets in episode 2 of this three part series: The invisible impact of soft plastic pollution on health

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For more information contact: info@scarabtrust.org.uk

Images:

vibrant snack aisle - Photo by Kenneth Surillo on Pexels (ST ref: 1383)

plastic-pollution-lifecycle from #BreakFreeFromPlastic