The Philippines’ “Sachet Economy”: Good for the Pocket, Bad for the Environment

by Johanna Maggay, Associate Editor
Editorial
Originally written on January 6, 2020

Illustration by Jiana Ortega

The Philippines has become an archipelago of waste.

The Philippines has become an archipelago of waste; turning the waters of various coastlines to seas of trash, and landfills to humongous mountains of garbage, to which plastic has become one of the largest contributors, making 10.6% of the solid waste generated in the country. Most of these plastic waste are made up of sachets, which are small packets that are made of thin plastic film and aluminum, and are used as packaging for products like shampoo, toothpaste, condiments, and many more. These sachets are considered as a daily necessity for the Filipino people, especially the ones living in low- income communities for it allows the poor to have better quality products at a low cost.

For consumer goods giants, sachets were “a brilliant marketing tactic to capture the low-income market and goods for brand visibility, but no one thought of the consequences,” said Von Hernandez, a Philippine environmental activist and global coordinator of Break Free From Plastic, an advocacy group.

"Although products in sachets has given poor communities a chance to live better quality lives; these single-use sachet packaging have become a total waste nightmare."

Although products in sachets has given poor communities a chance to live better quality lives; these single-use sachet packaging have become a total waste nightmare. According to GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives), an advocacy group, the Philippines consumes 163 million sachets a day, or 60 million a year, which is enough to cover all of metropolitan Manila in one foot of plastic. Making sachets the hideous face of plastic pollution in the country. 

But the Philippines cannot possibly ban the use of sachets, because "tingi" (retail) economy is deeply ingrained in Filipino culture, a lot of Filipino citizens depend on products like these to be able to afford other necessities. Perhaps the problem is not directly related to the sachet packaging itself but rather on how it is disposed of in the country. 

However, the Philippines does have strong laws and policies to combat the trash problem of the country, namely, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 or RA 9003, which was signed into law in 2001. The law itself looks pretty promising; it has provisions for solid waste reduction and avoidance through recycling, composting, and other methods before disposal in the appropriate facilities. The law also created the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC), headed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). The NSWMC also includes the heads of 13 other government offices and 3 representatives from the private sector, according to Rappler.

But a GAIA study revealed that of the total plastic waste produced in the Philippines, over a third originate from 10 local and international consumer goods manufacturers, as these are the single-use plastic packages of their products. “Despite the large amount of trash produced by their product packaging, the proliferation of their packaging waste not just in waterways and coastal areas but also in household waste destined for landfills shows that little effort has been made to reduce production of single-use disposable plastics, which results in this problematic waste stream,” GAIA wrote in the report.

This means that even though there are strong laws, the implementation is rather weak. Personally, I do believe that the problem with single-use plastics relies on the way the consumer disposes it and how the government takes care of the waste on a large scale. It is all embedded in the discipline of 1 citizen, and the discipline of the government itself. 

But the nice thing is, some communities are actually incorporating these single-use plastics into the making of buildings and furniture through “eco-bricks”, wherein they collect plastic bottles and other single-use plastics like sachets, and make use of it as a base of the reusable building block. There are also other innovations that can be an alternative to sachets, like bio-plastics, but I doubt that some big companies will adapt to it due to the practicality of plastic itself.