HUL declares war on plastic with cardboard deodorant and bamboo toothbrush

Unilever is tying up with plastic collectors and recyclers in all developed countries and in large developing markets like India.

Business Standard : When Hindustan Unilever (HUL) decided to put a curve on its best-selling Pond’s talc pack some time back, its patrons may have assumed the move was aimed at breaking the monotony of the cylindrical shape used for decades. While breaking the boredom was one of the reasons, the slight curve at the belly of Pond’s talc packs allowed the consumer goods giant to save one-third of the plastic that goes into each pack.

More recently, its distributors found that HUL had removed the plastic packaging layer inside the cartons of the best-selling Dove soaps. Dove soap packs now lay naked inside the carton boxes. The move has helped the local arm of the British-Dutch multinational cut down on single-use plastic.

While these measures started some time ago, HUL’s parent company, Unilever, has now launched a concerted effort to curb its use of plastic globally. As the voices against plastic waste get louder, the company aims to cut the use of virgin plastic by half by 2025. It also wants to collect and process more plastic packs than it can consume in seven years.

Unilever is tying up with plastic collectors and recyclers in all developed countries and in large developing markets like India. Through them, it has committed itself to collect and processing around 600,000 tonnes of plastic annually.

However, at the heart of Unilever’s bold commitment lies its design efficiency. It hopes to slash its use of plastic from 700,000 tonnes annually to 100,000 tonnes by changing the design and packaging of its products.

According to Alan Jope, chief executive officer, Unilever, the design is the starting point of its project. “Reducing the amount of plastic we use and then making sure that what we do use increasingly comes from recycled sources is the goal. We are also committed to ensuring all our plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable, or compostable. This demands a fundamental rethink in our approach to our packaging and products. It requires us to introduce new and innovative packaging materials and scale up new business models, like reuse and refill formats, at an unprecedented speed and intensity,” said Jope.

Globally, the firm has reduced its plastic waste by a third since 2010. According to the company, through its ‘Less Plastic’ initiative, Unilever has explored new ways of packaging and delivering products — including concentrates, such as its new Cif eco refill, which eliminates 75 per cent of plastic.