GAIA terms Unilevers plastic sachet chemical recycling as a failure

Unilever is asked to stop the production of sachet and switch to reuse/ refill systems by the Civil society organization.

Unilever Plc's claims that the recyclability of sachets using a controversial technology known as chemical recycling have mainly failed in Indonesia, according to an assessment by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). Unilever abruptly halted operations two years after launching its highly publicised pilot plant in Indonesia in 2017. The cause, according to GAIA in a statement dated January 19, 2022, is insurmountable logistical, financial, and technical hurdles. According to GAIA, Unilever aimed to collect 1,500 tonnes of sachet waste for recovery in 2019 and 5,000 tonnes in 2020. The idea was to create fresh sachets by recycling multilayer sachets. However, due to limited sachet recyclability and technological failures, the facility could only process mono-layer sachets to manufacture a different sort of sachet.

Unilever wanted to show that plastic sachets could be part of a circular economy and recycled several times using this new technology. However, 40-60 percent of the waste feedstock was lost as residue during the process, and the product's recyclability is unknown. According to GAIA's study, the now-closed facility cost Unilever more than 10 million euros to build since 2011. Sachets that were not collected were either held in warehouses, burned, or discarded in landfills. The abrupt closure has also harmed the livelihoods of rubbish pickers who were working on the project's collection. According to the Break Free From Plastic movement's annual brand audit report from last year, Unilever is the world's third largest corporate plastic polluter. Plastic sachets account for 16 percent of all waste in Indonesia, amounting to 7,68,000 tonnes yearly.

The corporation makes single-use plastic packaging that cannot be reused or recycled all over the world, resulting in vast volumes of waste that must be discarded or burned. Unilever's plastic sachets are especially problematic since they include numerous layers of different materials, adhesives, and colours that make recycling impossible. Clearly, Unilever's CreaSolv project is not a solution to the sachet problem, stated Froilan Grate, GAIA Asia Pacific regional coordinator. This is yet another of Unilever's deceptive public relations antics aimed at avoiding both the problem (single-use plastics) and the solution (redesigning their packaging) altogether, allowing business to continue as usual. Finally, the plastic problem grows, and people are held responsible.