Does "tingi" or plastic sachet packaging really benefit the Filipino masses?

When I was growing up in the seventies, my mother used to ask me to go to the corner store to buy 'tingi' or a portion of suka (vinegar), toyo (soy sauce), or paminta (pepper).  These portions were usually sold by 'takal' -- which can be as large as one glass or as small as an espresso cup.  In order to transport these portions from the store to the house, I usually had to bring a container -- which could be an empty bottle of whatever it was I was buying, like an empty vinegar bottle if I was buying vinegar.

These days, you no longer have to bring your own container to the corner store because you can now buy small portions of anything that you need in neat little plastic sachets.

Marketers in the Philippines touted this kind of packaging (tingi packaging) as a commercial success a couple years back.  It earned billions and billions of pesos a year, earning producers of products in tingi packaging huge profits.

It seemed like a great deal.

Low income consumers could now buy high quality products, which they previously couldn't afford.  Plus, big companies like Unilever, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, etcetera could now associate themselves with the 'masa' or masses -- which is a very lucrative market because of their sheer number.

Now, rather say that they are high quality brands, big multinational companies come up with advertising that present their products as a big help to housewives.  They claim that their products are 'mas matipid' (costs less and is more effective), thereby helping housewives budget their money better.

But are sachets really more matipid?

Another blogger tried to figure it out:

http://bruisedleaf.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/you-know-youre-in-the-philippines-if-youre-swimming-in-sachets/ 

And here’s a mystery for you: When you buy a sachet of this and that, and a sachet of everything else day after day, aren’t you paying more for packaging than the product it contains? Don’t products cost less per unit weight or volume when bought in larger quantities?

Wow. A poor sweatshop laborer, who could only afford small quantities of shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste and whatever, might be spending more money on the same quantity of product that a middle class office worker buys, only because the former buys them in small quantities all the time.

Now, because of the frequency and volume of sales, this type of marketing has inevitably produced tons of plastic waste.

This wouldn't be a problem if most Filipinos weren't the litter bugs that they are and if the government's garbage collection and recycling systems (if there is one) was a paragon of efficiency.

Sadly, most Filipinos are inveterate litterbugs and the garbage collection system (or what passes for it) isn't at all that effective.

In a previous post, we tried figuring just how much plastic waste "tingi" packaging generates:

http://pinoybiz.blogspot.com/2010/08/tax-to-curb-plastic-sachets-and-plastic.html 

Giant consumer goods manufacturer Unilever claims that every day, it sells 160 million products.  Assuming that the sales volume of the other manufacturing giants, Procter & Gamble and Nestle is in the vicinity of Unilever’s, that would be some 500 million products sold daily.

Let’s peg a conservative estimate that 10 percent of all products sold are in plastic sachets, then that’s 50 million.  That’s 50 million plastic sachets and pouches that will eventually find its way to our oceans, waterways, landfills and drainage systems ready to clog the free flow of water and trigger floods or kill marine wildlife.

But it is really reasonable to think that of the 500 million products sold daily by the three giants, only 10 percent of are in tiny plastic sachets?

Another blogger makes a different estimate:

http://pasigriveravenger.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/saw-dingdong-dantes-and-angel-locsin-endorse-a-product-then-picture-this-people/

According to Unilever’s vice president for corporate planning Chito Macapagal, 70% of Unilever Philippines 2007 sales is from the sachet market. That’s 70% of 30 billion pesos, or 21 billion pesos three years ago. That’s nine zeroes following 21. The company was enjoying double digit growth rate from the previous year, so expect that by now those numbers are now not just big, but big big.

Can you picture how many sachets 21 billion pesos’ worth of Unilever products are? Well, let’s see. Which brands of theirs have sachet variants? Sunsilk, Creamsilk, Rexona, Clear, Knorr, Lady’s Choice, Close-Up, Best Foods, and Vaseline come to mind. 

Moving on, 21 billion pesos in sachets, if say, the average price for any given sachet were 20 pesos conservatively (I say conservatively because first, most of those mentioned cost less than 20 pesos, and second, 21 billion pesos in Unilever’s sales is at supplier-to-distributor prices, which are lower than retail), would be equivalent to 1,050 million sachets. If a given sachet has 10mL of product inside, it’s like they’re producing- no, selling at least one Olympic size swimming pool’s worth of product every 3 months. That doesn’t sound like much, but you could shampoo all 90 million Filipinos 20 times over with that much shampoo, if it were all shampoo.

What’s difficult to imagine is the sheer quantity of packaging material that went into the making of all those sachets. If 1,050 million sachets were sold, then the waste would be 1,050 million multiplied twice to include front and back of the sachet, times 3 inches by 4 inches (I took an estimate of a Clear shampoo sachet), which equals 25,200 million square inches. This is the equivalent of about 16.26 square kilometers worth of sachet or wrapper material. Now, before you do take the initiative to shoot me for driving you nuts with numbers, picture this: 16.26 square kilometers of sachet is enough to cover all of Ilog Pasig.

Now, with this in mind, can you imagine just how much of this plastic packaging garbage ends up BLOCKING storm drains and flood ways?

Take a look at this picture:

Actually, you don't have to look at an estero like this to figure out just how much plastic garbage we generate.  If you pass by a flooded street, chances are, there's plastic garbage blocking the street's storm drains.

If you remember the Ondoy floods, here's a picture that shows proof of what partly caused it.

Plastic packaging partly to blame for Ondoy floods.

What you see in this picture is a chicken wire fence in Provident Village Marikina that acted like a net.

I had a chance to personally sift through this wall of plastic garbage, and I spotted plastic grocery bags from SM (from SM Marikina and SM Riverbanks), Downy wrappers, Surf wrappers, assorted shampoo sachets, etcetera.

With that said, one way of figuring what sachets really cost the average, masa consumer is to factor in the following:

- lost man hours and income because one cannot get to work because of floods caused by plastic sachets

- lost man hours and income because one got sick of dengue and other diseases caused by floods and stagnant water

- the cost of medicine and hospital treatment

- the cost of damaged property due to floods

- the cost of replacing or repairing damaged property due to floods

- the cost of fuel wasted due to traffic caused by floods

If you add all that up and add it to the cost of products in plastic packaging, you'd probably rack up a figure in the billions of pesos.

Philippine plastic sachets and plastic bag pollution

My in-laws were victims of Ondoy floods last year.

Their house is Provident Village in Marikina City was buried in a thick layer of mud.  The house was virtually gutted by the strong currents and all their possessions were destroyed.

It is quite difficult to estimate the value of what they lost in terms of pesos.  How can you put a price on decades of memories and keepsakes that were destroyed?  How can you put a price on the sense of security they lost when they found themselves fearing for their lives inside the very home that was supposed to shelter them from harm?  How can you put a price on the trauma that they experienced?

In the terrible hours of Ondoy, when my wife and I knew for certain that the lives of her father, mother, sister, and household help were in danger, there were fleeting moments of lucidity in between spasms of absolute horror when we wondered about what could have caused the flooding.

La Nina and the deforestation of the mountains of Rizal came to mind along with images of esteros and sewers blocked with plastic garbage.

Perhaps it was the confluence of all these things that brought about Ondoy.

With the typhoon season now in full swing, perhaps one of the more doable things right now is to make sure that the storm drains and esteros in Marikina are free and clear.

The dredging and cleaning of storm drains and esteros only provides a temporary solution.

This becomes particularly evident hours or days after the first heavy rains fall as a fresh slew of garbage (mostly plastics) find their way again into storm drains and esteros.

Over the longer term, I think part of the solution to the perennial clogging of storm drains and esteros as well as the problem of overflowing land fills is the reduction of plastic waste.

Plastic waste such as plastic sachets, plastic pouches and plastic grocery bags.

In Ghana (as referenced to in the previous post), the government proposed a levy or tax on producers and consumers of products with plastic packaging.

Here is a short description of the problems caused by plastic packaging in Ghana:

In Ghana, per capita generation of plastic wastes stands at 0.016–0.035 kg/person/day, and plastics make up between 8–9% of the component materials in the waste stream (Fobil, 2000). Now most products are packaged in polyethylene films, which form about 70% of the plastic waste in the municipal waste stream. According to Fobil (2000), the plastic materials in commerce across the sub-region include low-density polyethylene (LDPE) commonly called polyethylene films, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and other plastics such as polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

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Effects of plastic littering in Ghana

The plastic wastes have virtually choked the drainage system in the urban centres of the country to such an extent that it takes only the slightest of rainfall to precipitate floods in major cities like Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi. Indeed, as captured in the Daily Graphic of March 16, 2005, “the recent rains in Accra exposed the havoc being caused by plastic waste. Just an average of one or two hours of rain in Accra on March 15, 2005 led to flooding in certain parts of the city. The same intensity and duration of rain, a decade ago, would not have resulted in flooding”. Although different factors, such as erection of buildings and structures in water courses, have contributed to the increased incidence of flooding, lately, the significant cause of flooding in cities in Ghana is linked to the tremendous deterioration in urban drainage systems, most of which is attributable to plastic wastes blocking the drainage systems.

I haven't as of yet found a formal study on how much plastic waste we generate here in Metro Manila, but I'd say that it is a lot.  Going by some rough figuring, here's something to consider....

Giant consumer goods manufacturer Unilever claims that every day, it sells 160 million products.  Assuming that the sales volume of the other manufacturing giants, Procter & Gamble and Nestle is in the vicinity of Unilever’s, that would be some 500 million products sold daily.

Let’s peg a conservative estimate that 10 percent of all products sold are in plastic sachets, then that’s 50 million.  That’s 50 million plastic sachets and pouches that will eventually find its way to our oceans, waterways, landfills and drainage systems ready to clog the free flow of water and trigger floods or kill marine wildlife.

But it is really reasonable to think that of the 500 million products sold daily by the three giants, only 10 percent of are in tiny plastic sachets?

This only means that each day, hundreds of millions of plastic sachets will find its way to dumps and waterways where it will impose its staggering environmental impact, even as the giant manufacturers laugh all the way to the bank and dilly dally on efforts to address the looming ecological disaster.

Cliche’ as it may sound, plastic sachets and pouches mostly used to package personal care products like Colgate, Safeguard, Axe, Sunsilk, Dove Creamsilk and recently, even food items such as Best Foods and Lady’s Choice spreads, and  Knorr are not biodegradable and because millions and millions of them are sold each day, the same number of empty packages add to the already mounting pile of deadly rubbish.

Those that are dumped into oceans become marine debris and are often ingested by marine species or pollute their habitat leading to a decline in their population.

Sadly, one of the manufacturers, Unilever found a way to make hollow blocks and other construction material out of sachets and other residual materials, but could not go the extra mile.

The British - Dutch firm said that while the project was successful, it could not find a way to effectively collect all discarded plastic sachets from households, while the proposal to encourage consumers to collect the same and surrender it to retailers in exchange for rebates and other rewards would be too cumbersome.

Such a shame.  Had the manufacturers been more concerned with the environment rather than just fat profits, the sachet menace would not have escalated.

A survey by Greenpeace a few years back brought to light the magnitude of the plastics problem. 

On a clean - up drive of Manila Bay a few years back, Greenpeace reported that 76 percent of all rubbish retrieved were plastic materials.  Of the number, 51 percent were plastic bags, 19 percent were plastic sachets and pouches and 6 percent were styrofoam and hard plastics.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) also came out with a report that almost  6.4 million tons of garbage are dumped into oceans each year, again with plastics making up the bulk.

In 2005, UNEP estimated that there are around 12,000 to 13,000 pieces of floating plastic debris per square kilometer in the oceans worldwide.  A year later, it reported that the volume of floating plastic debris has ballooned to 46,000 pieces per square mile or 18,000 pieces per square kilometer.

With the advent of more aggressive marketing of consumer goods in sachets, we can just imagine the current volume of plastic debris pollution our oceans and threatening one of our major sources of food and livelihood.

In the summer months, tens of thousands of Filipinos troop to beaches and coastal areas to enjoy the fresh breeze, cool down and recharge on lazy afternoons. 

Unfortunately, these people also bring with them sachets of their favorite Sunsilk, Creamsilk, Clear, Safeguard, Colgate,Cheezee and Best Foods mayonnaise and eventually leave them behind on the shores, open trash cans and will be swept away by winds to the sea where they will start wreaking havoc on marine life for years.

Reports or studies on the amount or volume of plastic sachets dumped into landfills are scarce, but the ones conducted by Greenpeace and UNEP on the growing volume of the sachets in dumps and oceans seem to jive with the environmental signs and symptoms.

Too much plastic sachets in our drainage systems and waterways will trigger killer floods and result in dwindling harvest of marine resources worldwide.  We already had Ondoy last year.  Pakistan India, China and pretty much the rest of the world reel from flash floods every now and then.

The catch of commercial and municipal fishermen have been steadily declining over the past decades, too. 

There is no exact headcount for all the plastic sachets disposed into our environment, but we know they’re there.  And the global signs and symptoms confirm it. 

A concerted and sustained effort by consumers, and especially manufacturers in efforts to reduce waste and recycle plastic sachets is the only way the world can dodge the an ecological disaster ironically induced by a product packaging innovation its proponents described as a life-improving innovation.   

President Noynoy Aquino's plan to revive the Pasig River, plastic sachets, and flooding in Metro Manila

After writing the previous post on President Noynoy Aquino's visit to an estero near Malacanang, I found myself unfortunate enough to experience something that underlines just how important it is that the President makes good on his promise to revive the Pasig river.

Yesterday afternoon, I was awakened from a rather long nap by a frantic cellphone call from my wife.  She hollered over the sound of the rain and passing cars that it was raining hard and she couldn't get a taxi cab home.

So, roused from my sleep, I trundled over to the car and proceeded to drive towards Tomas Morato on E. Rodriguez.

At the front of what used to be called Q.I. or Quezon Institute, traffic slowed to a crawl.  The reason? Most of the street was flooded from the gate of QI to the corner of G. Araneta.

Now, this confounded me a bit because the corner of G. Araneta and E. Rodriguez is just a short walk away to a rather large tributary of the Pasig River.  Now, ordinary figuring tells me that this corner shouldn't be flooded because the storm drains in this area should be able to dump the flood water directly into the tributary just a few meters away.

I was able to look at the tributary as I drove past it on E. Rodriguez.  From the looks of it, it seemed that the level of water flowing through it was not unusually high, leading me to think that the drains leading to the tributary from E. Rodriguez was blocked.

Normally, when people are asked about what block storm drains, they normally say that storm drains are blocked by compacted mud or silt.  However, a friend who happens to be an engineer, pointed out that mud and silt normally flows along with the storm water.  What causes the blockage is not compacted mud or silt but debris and other solid waste -- the most prevalent of which are plastic grocery bags, plastic pounces and sachets.

The corner of E. Rodriguez and G. Araneta is where you can find Puregold Supermarket (a major source of plastic grocery bags), several subdivisions, and at least two major squatter colonies.  

It doesn't take too much figuring to come up with the idea that perhaps the people who buy their groceries at Puregold eventually discard plastic bags and wrappers in garbage bins which later gets picked through by people in squatter colonies for recyclables that they can sell.

Plastic bags, plastic pouches, and sachet wrappers are sometimes discarded all over the street after garbage pickers are through with them.  These things eventually end up in storm drains and voila! Storm drains get blocked.

While the major cause of Pasig River's pollution is untreated waste water from households, commercial establishments, and factories,  another major source is solid waste in the form of plastic packaging.

The plastic packaging that blocks storm drains, esteros, and even some parts of Pasig river tributaries contribute to the worsening of the pollution.  Stuck up waste water eventually becomes so concentrated with pollutants that when it is finally carried into the Pasig river, the natural processes that normally lead to its degradation is overwhelmed.  Plastics can also, at times, form a foundation on which algae and after that weeds can grow -- further choking esteros.

Now, I don't know just how serious President Noynoy Aquino is about reviving Pasig River is.  

Perhaps one of signs that he is serious about cleaning up the Pasig river would be if he comes up with an order to that would curb plastic pollution at its source.

In searching for possible solutions to plastic pollution on the internet, I came across what appears to be a paper on it.  Titled "The Dilemmas of Plastic Wastes in a Developing Economy: Proposals for a Sustainable Management Approach for Ghana", it proposes ways to get companies that use plastic packaging to pay for cleaning up the mess they create.

Here is a section of that paper:

Recent Government response

Realising the need for some structured plastic waste collection process for addressing the plastic waste menace in the country, the Ministry of Tourism and Modernisation of the Capital City together with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly proposed that plastic waste producers in the city of Accra should bear the cost of collection of the plastics, declaring a levy of 11,000 Ghanaian cedis (about 1.2 US dollars) per kilogram of plastic raw material.

...

Given that any undertaking or activity that generates residuals into the environment and/or degrades the environment should contribute to environmental cleaning under the “Polluter-Pays” arrangement, such undertakings and activities have a social and corporate responsibility to contribute to a plastic collection and environmental cleaning tax fund (pollution responsibility charges). As such, for the retrieval of plastic wastes from the environment in Ghana, a plastic polluter pays (PPP) levy system is advocated. This calls for an appropriate incremental levy system (perhaps per kilogram of plastic) that takes into account the margin of plastic pollution to be placed on all actors.

A weighted proportion of the levy should be borne by producers of the plastics (production pollution levy) and a correspond-ing weighted proportion also borne by the consumers who patronise the plastics or plastic packaged products (consumption pollution levy). Under this incremental levy system, it is possible to estimate the production capacity of the plastic producer and then calculate on monthly basis. This production pollution levy will be a fraction of its marginal profit and the quantity of plastics produced by the producer, which then can return into the environment to cause environmental pollution, if uncollected. Now, consumers of plastic products incur consumption pollution charges by buying plastics or plastic packaged products.

This will be a certain percentage of the production pollution charges calculated based upon the rate of consumption. The consumer PPP levy is meant to instil discipline in consumers regarding the way they dispose off plastics and this levy is retrievable by the consumer based on a tax refund system (or cash-back), which is part of the proposed levy system. The administration of the PPP levy system would be such that several plastic collection points are set up in various towns and cities across the country. This should give plastic consumers or thrash pickers an opportunity to be given cash back when they return plastic wastes to any of

these points. Cash back may be dependent on a kilogram of plastic returned or any other acceptable calculation. It should be convenient for the populace to reach these plastic collection points, which can be established both in residential and commercial places, as well as in some supermarkets. In this case, when one drinks, for instance sachet iced-water, there is financial motivation to keep the sachets and return them in exchange for cash-back on the product.

Similarly, people would be encouraged to return their black plastic carrier bags to the collection points for some cash back. Otherwise, anybody who collects plastic wastes from the floor and takes back to the collection point would enjoy the corresponding cash back. If the plastic wastes are not returned to the collection point, then city/town authorities have the responsibility to use the consumer PPP levy on the plastics to pay scavengers to collect these wastes from the corridors of the cities and towns. In effect consumers of plastic products would bear a portion for the collection of the plastic wastes. The consumers, however, have the choice not to bear this levy when they return the plastic waste to the collection point. This kind of system has already proven to work informally in many cities in sub-Sahara Africa as some low income groups often pick-up potentially useful waste materials from the curbside for resale to the public.