Given the complexity of the issues surrounding packaging and the diverse stakeholders involved, we need to work in partnership to find viable solutions.
OUR PARTNERSHIPS
With businesses in many parts of the world, it is important we understand the way waste management systems function at a local level. We are working with a range of partners to develop our understanding and identify effective solutions. Unilever is a founding member of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, which has more than 160 members, including packaging producers, users and retailers. We are also members of EUROPEN (the European Organization for Packaging and the Environment).
We work in partnership with retailers and NGOs to explore ways of improving recycling infrastructure. Since 1992, for example, we have supported the CEMPRE waste management and recycling initiative in Brazil, which works with the ‘waste picking’ community.
‘Waste picking’ – retrieving waste that can be sold for reuse or recycling – is common in the developing world. CEMPRE is a non-profit organisation that promotes recycling, raising awareness at government and NGO level and helping workers, usually the poor and disadvantaged, who are actually engaged in waste recovery. It advises local waste or rag pickers how to set up a co-operative and has published a ‘how-to’ kit. It publishes a regular newsletter and runs a hot-line on the current price of recyclables. CEMPRE support allows vulnerable freelance pickers to form organised co-operatives that are well placed to sort, store and resell materials, reducing waste to landfill and dumps and improving workers’ lives. The success of this partnership has led to the CEMPRE model being launched in other countries on different continents.
We are also working with TIMPSE in Thailand, a similar organisation to CEMPRE, to try to replicate the success of CEMPRE. We are investigating ways to roll out this kind of approach to other countries, together with other partners.
In Brazil, our brands Omo, Rexona, Knorr and AdeS continue to work in partnership with retailer Pão de Açúcar to encourage the recycling and recovery of packaging waste. Pão de Açúcar gives customers colour-coded plastic bags when they shop at the store to help sort and bring back their waste for recycling. All items collected are donated to co-operatives, who separate, bale and sell them, generating income for more than 1,000 people. SeeReduce, reuse, recycle for more details.