Writing to Unilever Philippine's Chito Macapagal regarding plastic pollution

After some searching, I was able to find a media contact for Unilever Philippines.  It wasn't exactly on the Unilever Philippines website media contacts page, but appeared as a fragment on one of the Google search results.  I was also surprised to discover that the Unilever Media Contact page didn't contain a media contact page for the Philippines.

In anycase, I was able to fire off a letter to Mr. Chito Macapagal whom I assume must be in a Corporate Communications capacity.

Dear Mr. Chito Macapagal,

It was rather difficult looking for a way to contact you through e-mail.  Apparently, the link leading to your contact page on the Unilever website had been taken out or replaced.  Moreover, after looking, I found out that no listing for media contacts for the Philippines appears on the contact page.

I was rather lucky enough to find a fragment of the Unilever Philippines Media Contact page and am now able to write to you.

I realize that Unilever Philippines, being firmly committed to helping preserve the environment, must know the impact made by the plastic packaging of its products.

I want to know more about what Unilever is doing to minimize the impact of the plastic packaging of its products on the environment and therefore, would like answers to the following questions.

I would like to know, how many Unilever Philippines products have plastic sachet/pouch variants or are packaged in plastic sachets? 

What are these products? Are the plastic sachets that you use recyclable or biodegradable?

How many of these plastic sachet products are sold in the Philippines?

How do you make sure that the discarded sachets do not end up polluting the environment? 

How do you make sure that they don't end up clogging water ways or the seas? 

Do you have a retrieval system for the sachets that your company uses to package its products?

Moreover, I would also like to ask if Unilever is a participant to the US "Plastics Disclosure Project" of the Clinton Global Initiative, which takes its cue from the Carbon Disclosure Project's carbon and water program.  The project aims to come out with a comprehensive report on every company's plastic usage and encourage the world's investment community to help reduce plastic use, redesign their products and identify programs where money can be saved when it comes to plastic.

I hope my e-mail doesn't bounce back because I really dread having to send snail mail.

After writing to Unilever, I intend to send other companies which also produce products in plastic sachet packaging the same questions.

Aurora Solon files bill against plastic pollution

Congressman Juan Edgardo Angara, representing the lone district of Aurora, has filed a bill which intends to curb plastic pollution.

House Bills 496 or the proposed Plastic Bag Recycling Act of 2010 and House Bill 501 or the proposed Stores Proactive in Plastic Bag Recycling Act of 2010 both bills promoting the reduction of plastics usage, encourage the use of alternative and reusable bags, like canvass or cloth, and devise retrieval and recycling mechanisms for the benefit of the environment.

In a news release posted on the government website just now, Angara explains the need for the law:

The bills seek to establish at-store retrieval and recycling program will be instituted to provide consumers an easier way to partake in this environmental initiative.

"The use of plastic bags must be reduced. This may be achieved by requiring retailers to establish a recycling mechanism for plastic bags and encouraging consumers to use reusable bags," Angara said.

"In the United States, a similar, but seemingly more progressive, move is being pushed to publicly track corporate plastics usage and management plans in the hopes of reducing plastic pollution around the world," Angara said.

Launched at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in Florida, the "Plastics Disclosure Project" takes its cue from the Carbon Disclosure Project's carbon and water program.

"The project aims to come out with a comprehensive report on every company's plastic usage and encourage the world's investment community to help reduce plastic use, redesign their products and identify programs where money can be saved when it comes to plastic," Angara said.

Plastic bags are just part of the plastic pollution generated by companies in the Philippines.

Unilever, San Miguel, Nestle, Procter and Gamble, and other lesser known companies earn billions of pesos from selling products in plastic sachets.

The latest sachet commercial I've seen is the Uno Dos Tres Quatro of Vaseline Shampoo.



Of course, being marketed to the lower income bracket, I can predict a surge in sales that will eventually mean MORE discarded plastic sachets ending up in our country's landfills, waterways, and seas.

Do you think Unilever will pay for cleaning up the mess they create?

I just hope that Congressman Angara, in pursuing this bill, also checks into the plastic pollution generated by companies that use plastic sachet packaging.

Sana magkaruon ng hearing in aid of legislation para magkaalaman kung sino talaga ang pinaka-grabeng plastic polluter.

Remember Ondoy: Carlos Celdran to stop using plastic bags

On Facebook, Carlos Celdran swears off using plastic
bags in his store.  We wish others would do the same.

Carlos Celdran announced on Facebook that he will no longer be using plastic bags in his store and this announcement comes just right in time as we all revisit our memories of the Ondoy floods that hit us almost exactly a year ago.

Carlos, in a prior status update, also said that several provinces have banned the use of plastic bags.

Jarius Bondoc, one of Metro Manila's most read columnists, also related that the entire state of California has or will ban plastic bags.

Friends in congress have also informed me of a bill filed by Congressman Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Angara called "The Plastic Bag Recycling Act of 2010".

The explanatory note of HB 496 reads:

This Act shall be known as “The Plastic Bag Recycling Act of 2010” which seeks to reduce or minimize the use of plastic bags.

Plastic bags are easily carried by wind, escaping from landfills and garbage bins. Plastic carryout bags and film plastic are not biodegradable. These bags break down into smaller toxic bits that contaminate soil and waterways and enter into the food web when animals accidentally ingest those materials, and that these pieces can last for more than 1,000 years.

What’s wrong with plastic bags? Plastic bags are seen as a symbol of wasteful society as they are a form of packaging that is often not essential. As a single use disposable form of packaging, plastic bags are typically used for a short period of time but take hundreds of years to break down in landfill. Plastic bags are extremely visible and unsightly component of litter.

Salient provisions of this bill requires that retailers establish an at-store recycling program and to offer reusable bags (such as canvas or cloth). It is about time that we reduce the use plastic bags and encourage the use of reusable bags for the benefit of our environment.

This is the second house bill that I've been informed about that will, if enacted into law, help prevent the occurrence of another flood as bad as Ondoy.

The house bill that I learned about was HB 127 which seeks to impose taxes on the use of plastic bags.

Few people make the connection between plastic pollution and the Ondoy floods last year or the regular floods that we have in Metro Manila every time it rains.

Yes, the Ondoy Typhoon was powerful and it did dump an unprecedented amount of water on Metro Manila.  Yes, there is an absolute lack of urban planning in Metro Manila and this is the reason why our flood control systems (if it can be called that) is simply inadequate.  Yes to all the other factors that contributed to the Ondoy Floods.

However, one single factor that perhaps aggravated the whole mess that was Ondoy was that most of Metro Manila's drainages and waterways were clogged full of plastic.

The plastic that plugged most storm drains are not just from grocery bags or single use sando bags, but discarded plastic containers (sachets, pouches, etcetera).

The biggest producer of products in plastic packaging are companies like Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Nestle, and San Miguel.

It is estimated that Unilever ALONE produces some 16 square kilometers of plastic packaging and THIS IS ROUGHLY THE SURGACE AREA OF THE PASIG RIVER.

Can you imagine just how much plastic packaging is produced by all of these companies?

In his radio program, Jarius Bondoc said that in Europe, manufacturers of plastic products are MADE RESPONSIBLE for the disposal of the plastic wastes that their products produce.

In other words, the responsibility of these companies to minimize the environment impact of their operations ARE MADE TO EXTEND BEYOND THE GATES OF THEIR MANUFACTURING PLANTS.

This is why Unilever Philippine's crowing about how it cleans its plant's waste water is OF NO SIGNIFICANCE to the real task of CLEANING UP the plastic pollution it GENERATES. 

PLASTIC KAYONG LAHAT!!!!

Caring for the environment is just one of those corporate buzzwords that eventually reveal the hypocrisy and schizophrenia of its corporate communications.

Well known beauty product maker, Unliever, makes a big deal about its beauty products but denies that the plastic wrappers and containers its products come in UGLIFY the environment.

Procter and Gamble, Nestle, and other companies market sachet products intensively, even sponsoring some running events to "SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT" while the discarded sachets of the products they make end up blocking storm drains and water ways -- even littering beautiful natural scenery all over the country.

Anyway, here are some basic concepts about PLASTIC POLLUTION.

This comes from Plastic Pollution Coalition:

Plastic is forever

Plastic is a material that the Earth cannot digest. Every bit of plastic that has ever been created still exists, except the small amount that has been incinerated, and has become toxic air and particulate pollution.

Plastic is poisoning our food chain

In the environment, plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller particles that attract toxic chemicals. These particles are ingested by wildlife on land and in the ocean, and contaminate our food chain.

Plastic affects human health

Harmful chemicals leached by plastics are already present in the bloodstream and tissues of almost every one of us, including newborns.

Single Use plastics and Disposable plastics are the main source of plastic pollution

Consumption of single use and disposable plastics has spiraled out of control. They are used for seconds, hours, or days, but their remains will last hundreds of years.

Recycling is not a sustainable solution

Unlike glass and metal, recycling plastic is costly and does not stem the production of virgin plastic product. Most of our plastic waste is landfilled, downcycled or exported to other countries.

The oceanic gyres

Patches of plastic pollution cover millions of square miles of ocean in the North Pacific and in the North Atlantic. Scientists expect to find similar accumulation areas in the remaining oceanic gyres. There is no known way to clean up the plastic pollution in the oceans: the plastic particles are very small and circulate throughout the entire water column. The amount of plastic pollution in the oceans is expanding at a catastrophic rate.

It is “plastic pollution”, not “marine debris”

We believe that the term “marine debris” (used consistently by the plastics industry) is euphemistic, vague, and ineffective. We are here to talk about plastic pollution in the oceans, plastic pollution on land, and plastic pollution in our bodies. Let’s call it what it is.

Kapihan sa Sulo:ACE talks about plastics pollution and remembering Ondoy Floods

Last Saturday, members of the Alliance for a Cleaner Earth (ACE) and myself were able to get some time at the Kapihan sa Sulo at the newly refurbished Sulo Hotel in Quezon City.

ACE is a group of outdoor sports enthusiasts who live out their environmentalist causes by collecting aluminum cans, practicing Earth Day everyday by shutting down their household's power for two hours everyday, by giving up smoking, using E-10 fuels, lessening their plastic wastes, and once a year, holding a rock concert cum clean up drive in areas endangered by climate change.  We also participate in the projects of other groups whose cause is to fight for climate change adaptation measures.

Members of the group present were Abbie Modino, Jojo Menorca, Chi Martillo, Au Martillo, Salvs Beleo, and myself.

It was a good thing that some of our friends in the media allowed us some time to share our message about remembering Ondoy and stopping plastic pollution.  This despite the fact that the organizers of Kapihan would probably have wanted more time discussing the present brouha-ha over police brutality sparked by the torture video played excessively on television.

I don't know how many people have suffered from police brutality and the worst thing I ever experienced from a policeman was to get a ticket for beating the red light.  The thing is, I think, you only have to be worried about police brutality if you are a chronic street protester, a criminal, or a vagrant.  

Ordinary law abiding citizens don't have to worry much about the police, unless, of course, they are victims of a crime and the perpetrators are relatives or friends of a policeman.

In any case, out of every ten people I talk to about the Ondoy floods last year, about seven have their own stories to tell and of those seven, four or five were actually victims of Ondoy.

And talk about brutality... There's nothing more brutal than mother nature showing up at your front door in the form of a raging flood carrying all sorts of debris.  There's nothing more brutal than losing almost everything your own to a flood.  There nothing more brutal than watching your loved one drown in a flood.

photo credit 

http://livingtogetherblog.com/tag/ondoy/

Almost always, there'll be stories to tell and among those stories will be stories about the fears of another Ondoy flood happening.

It's not the sort of irrational phobia that one ends up having all their lives after, say, getting struck by lightning or some other incident that has more than one-in-a-million odds stacked against it happening again.

The fear of another Ondoy flood is actually grounded on the certain likelihood that it is bound to happen again, if not this year, then next year or the year after that.

Do you think I'm wrong? I've got two words for you.  Typhoon Basyang.

While we were 'lucky' -- YES LUCKY -- that Typhoon Basyang didn't cause the floods that we experienced with Ondoy, but there were still floods and a very major power disruption that lasted for days in some areas of Metro Manila.

In any case, the likelihood of having another Ondoy is premised on the fact that our country experiences an average of 20 typhoons every year and despite this, the national government has not adopted or implemented any long range plans for Climate Change Adaptation.

So far, the only things that have been done by the present administration so far is:

- the President visited a number of esteros near Malacanang

- the DENR, DPWH, and PRRC showed up at another estero to pose for cameras as they ordered a clean up of ONE estero

- the President spoke at the Bayer Young Environmentalists event and said that he'd go after polluters in neckties.

- a flood mapping project is being finished up, but no mention yet of a real flood control system being put into place 

- the President ordered an anti-littering drive on the Pasig river

- the relocation of squatters along the Pasig river is being done

- Pagasa is being beefed up, or so we're told, so that we'll get better warnings of impending destructive typhoons. 

- the MMDA is asking private companies to lend heavy earth moving machinery to the government so that esteros can be declogged.

- a Pasig River marathon organized by the PRRC that doesn't go anywhere around or near the Pasig River! 

All of these steps can do some good, but perhaps, not on the scale of what really needs to happen in order so that a great number of lives and property can be saved when we are faced with another Ondoy.

At the Kapihan sa Sulo, ACE came out to call for measures that would drastically reduce the use of plastic packaging -- sachets, pouches, bags, bottles, etcetera -- and at the same time build up necessary funds that could be used for the retrieval and proper disposal of plastic waste.

Telling companies such as Unilever, Proceter and Gamble, Nestle, SM, Rustans, Puregold, and other large companies that they ought to lessen the plastic pollution they create is just one of the number of things ACE has in mind.

Why is it important to curb the country's production of plastic waste?

It is because plastics are the major cause of flooding in Metro Manila and if you are wondering just how much plastic trash the consumption of goods in plastic containers generate, here are a couple of estimates:

Here's one estimate:

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?

And here's another way of figuring it.

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.

Paying to clean up our own mess... taking a look at carbon taxes and plastic pollution taxes

Ben Kritz made a good point about Juan Ponce Enrile's calls for a shift to a compensatory character of funding from The Adaptation Fund, established by the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Internationally, official delegations sent by the Philippines to negotiate the international climate treaty have taken strong positions to treat climate finance not as aid or charity but as compensation to be paid by countries responsible for the problem. This, I believe, is the correct stance.

In fact, legally, I would analyze and look at this matter as a "tort". Harm was inflicted on our people, and more injury is expected in the future arising from impacts emanating from the profligate and polluting practices and lifestyle of developed countries. There is a climate debt that needs to be paid and reparations are in order.

Unfortunately, laudable positions taken by the Philippines abroad on climate-related finance are not reflected here at home. We still conduct our business with a beggar's bowl. We accept climate-related concessional loans from countries responsible for this climate crisis.  We accept climate-related grants with conditions that are onerous and injurious to our financial health and ultimately, to our people's welfare.  We have exercised national leadership so poorly, particularly with the agency that is tasked to be leading and coordinating the national climate effort.

Ben had this to say:

When the Philippines decides to clean up its own act and enforce what environmental/anti-pollution laws it already has on the books, it will then be in a position to dare talk about "compensatory funding." This was one of my biggest beefs with GMA last year -- the environmental harm that causes direct human harm in this country does NOT come from across the seas.

Her position, which is what JPE seems to be agreeing with, was that global environmental effects -- of which Ondoy would be an individual example -- are made worse by the countries that are responsible for the greatest amount of pollution that contributes to global warming, and that the countries who do not contribute significantly to that problem should be compensated proportionally in order to withstand the effects.

Okay, so on principle, that is not completely off-base. But what aggravates the effects of a typhoon (or even an ordinary heavy rainstorm) here? It is the LOCAL pollution, poor infrastructure planning and design, poor land management, etc. If all else was equal, i.e., if the Philippines was rationally managing its own environment, then yes, the idea of 'balance in mitigation' might well come into play. But singing the sad song about "we suffer from the effects caused by the rest of the world" just doesn't wash at this point. 

 And just now, I came across Alex Magno's column which talks about the introduction of a carbon taxes:

 http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=603441&publicationSubCategoryId=64

In our own little economy, we will need to quickly build a dozen or so power plants over the next few years to avert a power shortage. Since we have renounced nuclear power, nearly all these plants will use fossil fuels — even as we all know demand will soon outstrip supply of fossil fuels over the next decade.

We can no longer rely on token gestures aimed at mitigating climate change. At the rate we are going, the Antarctic might melt away before we actually begin reversing the greenhouse effects of the carbon we emit.

The “inconvenient truth” now requires taking inconvenient steps to confront it. Nobel laureate Jeffrey Sachs, who now advises the UN secretary-general, has proposed a truly inconvenient tool to wield against the challenge posed by climate change.

We will make no progress in the battle against climate change, says Sachs, if people can freely emit carbon without penalty. He proposes that all governments now introduce a “carbon tax” on all activities that result in carbon emissions. That will create greater market impetus to either shift to renewable energy or to at least reduce the carbon footprint enterprises or private citizens make.

If we charge a road-users tax on people who use the roads, a sin tax on people who consume unhealthy products and every sort of property taxes on people who own land, why not impose a tax on carbon footprints? The revenue from such a tax will provide enough money for really meaningful public investments in reversing climate change. Let’s give this idea some serious thought.

What are carbon taxes?  Here's a definition from the Wikipedia:

A carbon tax is an environmental tax that is levied on the carbon content of fuels.[1] Carbon atoms are present in every fossil fuel (coal, petroleum, and natural gas) and are released as carbon dioxide (CO2) when they are burnt. In contrast, non-combustion energy sources—wind, sunlight, hydropower, and nuclear—do not convert hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide. A carbon tax can be implemented by taxing the burning of fossil fuels—coal, petroleum products such as gasoline and aviation fuel, and natural gas—in proportion to their carbon content. Accordingly, a carbon tax increases the competitiveness of non-carbon technologies compared to the traditional burning of fossil fuels, thus helping to protect the environment while raising revenues.

From what I can understand, this will in effect force people to shift to non-carbon or non-combustion energy sources.

Although, certainly a good idea, one would have to consider that non-combustion energy sources are not easy to come by or affordable -- unless, of course, the carbon tax is expressly levied to subsidize the shift to non-combustion energy sources.

Now, if you said that carbon taxes will do just that, you'd have to figure out if we have enough rich people or industries who'll basically pay the higher priced combustion energy sources.  Otherwise, we'll just end up with higher priced fuels and energy whether it is combustion based or non-combustion based.

In any case, I think as far as taxing as a way of curbing the use of products and processes that are harmful to the environment is concerned, we can also look at taxing producers of plastic wastes (companies and consumers of products that come in plastic bags, pouches, sachets, and bottles).

This represents a larger base for taxation.  Just consider, if you will, the amount of revenue you can raise from taxing the use of plastic sachets by figuring it from the volume of plastic sachet products that are produced and marketed on a daily basis.

Here's one estimate:

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?

And here's another way of figuring it.

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.

Taxing plastic containers can easily generate several billions of pesos in additional funds which can fund the acquisition of technologies that will help reduce the amount of plastic trash, clean up our drains and rivers, etcetera...

Moreover, it will also force people to shift to the more ecologically sound practice of using reusable containers for all sorts of products.

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.

Pnoy's surprise visit to an estero near Mendiola Bridge, calls to revive the Pasig River

Perhaps President Noynoy Aquino's brief visit to an estero near Malacanang a couple of days ago might have been a deliberate and symbolic act meant to get the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission to really start doing its job.  

Maybe it was also his way of signalling huge multinational corporations that operate on its banks to not only clean up their factory operations but also take more responsibility in ensuring their products do not end up polluting the Pasig River.

Then again, the only way to know for certain that his visit isn't just a publicity gimmick is if he follows this up with further action. 

At a time of water shortages and worsening traffic conditions, a revived Pasig river may be the key to providing solutions.

Up until the 1940s and 1950s, the Pasig River was a vital transport route -- being the country's first highway, provider of food and potable water.

Right now, the river is mostly black as death and stinks of it too.

Years ago, when the Piso Para sa Pasig Movement of the Ramos Administration was getting some attention in the media, I was given the rather inglorious task of writing a short documentary about efforts to revive the river for then Office of the Press Secretary's weekly TV magazine.

Back then, the Presidential News Desk and friendly media were milling articles saying that efforts to revive the Pasig River was succeeding.  Fish had returned, they said.  The smell and sight of the river had improved a lot, they said.

Of course, with the RTVM office sitting right on the bank of Pasig River, I knew there was some truth to what was being claimed.  But, then again, I also thought that the wonderful claims may have been embellished a bit.

So, after some initial hesitation, I eventually starting shooting video for the short documentary.  

I was able to get my video crew on board one of the PSG river boats that patrolled the banks of the Pasig river.  On that vessel, we were able to visit a pretty long stretch of the river and much to my surprise, only certain sections along the river really gave off the smell of sewerage.  These were the sections where the banks had a pretty large squatter population, sections where esteros were feeding into the river, and sections where raw sewerage was pouring into the Pasig River (specially the one near Quinta Market Quiapo and near Binondo).

I expected that river sections near factories or industrial complexes would be blacker and stinkier, however, much to my surprise, it wasn't.

Based on the little that I observed, I was sort of convinced that households and commercial establishments contributed more to the pollution of the Pasig river than large companies that operated on its banks.  

This view was supported years later by a study made by the Linaw Foundation, a USAID funded organization that helps communities build water sanitation facilities, that said that households and commercial establishments (rich and poor alike) contributed more significantly to water pollution than factories.

Recently, I got wind of an article where Unilever was brandishing its wonder water treatment facility that made water coming from its plant so clean that Kois could live in it.

In an article in Philippine Star titled "Green makes good business ", Unilever crows:

“We want to make sure that we’ll be able to grow our business without raising the impact of our operations on the environment, “ says Chito Macapagal, vice president for Corporate Affairs of Unilever Philippines. “Sustainability is the key here and by implementing such practices now, we achieve a two-fold mission – growing our business by bringing vitality to the lives of individuals and to the community.”

One notable effort is the company’s wastewater treatment facility in its manufacturing plant in Paco, Manila which has been in place since 1994. Wastewater from plant operations go through several processes – including a bath of germ-killing natural bacteria – to make sure that no toxic residue reaches the nearby 25-kilometer waterway which ultimately flows into the Pasig River. The whole system is so effective that the treated water also becomes the habitat of the company’s koi fish.

 This may be so, but it doesn't necessarily let Unilever off the hook.

Even as it makes a biggie out of how clean its factory operations are, it doesn't say anything about the damage done by the plastic sachets of its products -- a significant amount of which ends up clogging drains and esteros.

This article on Pasig River Avenger talks about the sachet problem more fully:

http://pasigriveravenger.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/it’s-a-small-and-filthy-world-after-all/ 

Today, leading consumer goods manufacturers Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Nestle have saturated market shelves with their products in plastic sachets and pouches.

Sadly, the sachet revolution not only filled our shelves but also landfills, waterways and other places where they are dumped, clogging drainage facilities ad triggering massive environmental damage like floods.

Just remember Ondoy  last year and the massive flooding it caused, blamed largely on clogged drains.

Yes, products in sachets are answers to the deteriorating purchasing power of people, (though the same is disputed by economists and business analysts) and manufacturers have the right earn profits by supplying that need,  which they have been doing for many years now.

But how about the moral obligation of being more active in helping clean up the mess caused by the proliferation of their products in sachet?

Globally, there have been mounting calls for giant consumer goods manufacturers like Unilever, Nestle and Procter & Gamble to help in the clean up, but sadly, all we ever got were press releases, publicity stunts and other short term gimmicks meant to silence the issue.

Behind their glitzy gimmicks and other programs, sadly, the problem of mounting piles of plastic sachets in our dumps is still there.

 The thing is, will Unilever get out of the lucrative sachet market in order to maintain its claims of being a protector of the environment?

Do you love Dove beauty soap?

Unilever and its host of beauty products make a big deal about how effective they are at keeping women's faces beautiful and young.

But on the other side of its beauty products commercials is the ugly reality that where and how it sources materials for its products is leaving horrendous scars on the planet.

Unilever has since dropped its Indonesian supplier of Palm Oil, Sinar Mas, but does that mean it is now on the straight and narrow as far as protecting the environment is concerned?

Does Pond's have cocaine in it?

I found this rather funny blogpost on Utak Pugita today.

The title of the post is "Pond's Reinvents Celine Lopez" and if you don't know who she is, then you probably weren't around when the Brian Gorrel bomb exploded on the Philippine blogosphere.

Luckily, there's a snippet about it on the post:

"CELINE LOPEZ, daughter of former Iloilo Rep. Albertito Lopez and Guimaras Rep. Emily Relucio, is now caught in a crossfire in the quarrel of two gay men, Australian landscape designer Brian Gorrell and Filipino lifestyle columnist DJ Montano.

Gorrell, who had since fled to Sydney, accused Montano of swindling him of money totaling US$70,000. From where he is, he opened a blog on 4 March 4 2008 where he maligns Montano and accuses his well-to-do friends, whom he identified as the Gucci Gang, of attempting to cover up the deed and striking back at him.

The controversy is now featured in Wikipedia, which noted that Gorrell’s blog ”has since become a major gossip topic in Philippines’ capital city Manila, exposing its high-society youths’ alleged freeloading lifestyle and addiction to COCAINE... "

Pond's institute has taken the initiative to revive the 90's lifestyle!

-- Source: Utak Pugita

Now, what does Celine Lopez have to do with Pond's?

Well, apparently, Pond's has taken on Celine Lopez as an image model of sorts:

Local fashion’s known druggies come together to represent the limited edition Pond’s Plains & Prints collection... Model-columnists and best friend of the notorious DJ Montano, Celine Lopez leads tha pact as well as "self proclaimed" real estate goddess and "party animal" Divine Lee. Others include has been model Apples Aberin, lifestyle writer "kuno" Patty Betita,  interior designer (not certified) Mai Kaufmann, and "makeup artist" Bianca Valerio.

-- Source  Utak Pugita

Pond's is a brand of Unilever, the foreign multinational colossus that spends billions of pesos in advertising in the Philippines.

To me, that's enough money to make any company and any product the apple of everybody's eye.  At least in a PR sense, no news program or current affairs show will talk about what the company is doing wrong lest Unilever pulls out its ads from the TV station or Newspaper.

I mean, never mind that it's latest commercial showing an apple turning brown is absolutely misleading.

As any kid from a good private school will tell you, halved APPLES will TURN BROWN if you leave the flesh exposed in the air -- whether or not you put anything the exposed flesh.

As if we don't have enough problems as it is with our public education system, Unilever has by itself wrecked the chemistry education of millions of public school children.