Unilever rethinks plastic use in brands and this is the result until now

São Paulo – Unilever is about to launch on the market your first bottle made with plastic waste collected from beaches of the Brazilian coast. Earlier this year, in a joint action with the environmental group WWF-Brazil, the company made joint efforts with volunteers on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco and collected 1.5 tons of plastic. The new bottles come in limited edition to 18000 liquid soap OMO units between the months of August and September. Although it seems timely, the onslaught marks the beginning of the use of recycled plastic in every brand of detergent bottles. With the initiative, the company hopes to reduce the demand for Virgin plastic, use more than 500 tons of such material per year, in addition to promoting the recycled plastic as the bottles will be produced in partnership with cooperatives of recycling. Rethinking the use of plastic to rethink the use of plastic raw material — which in recent years has become a kind of eco-villain given your petroleum origin and its negative effects when thrown inappropriately in the environment — it's a movement that has won appeal within Unilever. The company pursues the goal of having 25% recycled plastic in all their packaging until 2025. To achieve it, is mobilizing all its brands. In the category of personal care, for example, are the hair products that start to solid waste reduction agenda, such as the launch of the shampoo bottles black bright Silk made with at least 1/3 of post-consumer recycled plastic and the new TRESemmé packaging using 20% less plastic. "The consumer is already thinking differently and seeking more sustainable products," says Giovanna Garcia, marketing director at Unilever to the EXAM site. A study of our global with 20000 consumers revealed that 54% want to buy more sustainable, 33% are already adopting sustainable brands and 21% would choose brands if the sustainability goals were clearer ". According to her, the brands with more sustainable appeal of Unilever, which today are 22, had a growth of 46% faster than the rest, generating 70% of the company's growth in 2017. No wonder, the new packaging in OMO count with stamps that will indicate that their products have reduced impact on the environment. A more responsible management of waste not only aligns with the Brazilian solid waste Policy – determines that every enterprise has responsibility for products that can become solid waste-also meets a movement in greater environmental awareness market. And is also a form of company suit a different kind of pressure: a group of 25 investors manages more than $ $1 trillion in assets is demanding that Nestle, PepsiCo, Procter Gamble and Unilever & reduce the use of plastic packaging, considered by them harmful to the environment. The new times already generate a series of changes to processes within the company, as told to the EXAMINATION site marketing director. Check out the interview. 1) If the goal is to have 25% of Unilever of reused plastic packaging until 2025, currently as it's used and what actions the company is taking to achieve your goal? In 2017, considering the global portfolio of products, Unilever used 4850 tons of CA [resins with recycled content] in their packaging. The actions related to waste and packaging is one of the fronts of Unilever's Sustainability Plan, released in 2010. The first version of the plan already has 80% of its commitments fulfilled and, last year, had the goals for the use of plastic incremented. In 2017, launched globally specific commitments for the issue of plastic packaging. Are they: have 100% recyclable plastic packaging, compostable or reusable up to 2025; Reduce one third the weight of packaging until 2020 (with base year 2010); Increase in at least 25% the use of recycled plastic in packaging until 2025 (having as base year 2015). But since 2009, Unilever invests heavily in the development of concentrated products that have packaging that use less plastic (between 37% and 47% less plastic). In 2010, started to invest in refis, which uses up to 70% less plastic than traditional packaging. In 2017, Unilever introduced the first solution capable of completely recycle waste plastic and multi-layer sachets, named CreaSolv ®. The pilot plant, located in Indonesia, began operating in may 2018. The pods before non-recyclable polyethylene will be transformed and returned to value chain, following the concept of circular economy. In addition, the company announced that it will provide the CreaSolv ® Process for other industries with the aim to boost the recycling of this type of packaging. 2) and as the operations in Brazil contribute in this process? To achieve these goals in Brazil, Unilever began an in-depth review of their packaging and chose the OMO brand, present in 75% of Brazilian homes, to lead this movement. Even before formalizing the new goals, created the project "For a cleaner Planet," which has three areas: sustainable innovation, icons packs and targeting and engaging. The first results of this project are already being introduced through the launch of OMO Multi-action liquid with recycled plastic. In the category of personal care brands TRESemmé hair silk and began the reduction of solid waste, working since the inclusion of recycled materials, to reducing the amount of material used, always maintaining the recyclability the same in 100%. The SILK mark launched black bright Silk Shampoo bottles made with at least 1/3 of post-consumer recycled plastic and are 100% recyclable. With the initiative, every 10 tons of plastics used to produce the bottles of shampoo, at least three are reused plastic comes from waste discarded by consumers. Tresemmé relaunched all your portfolio with new packaging that use 20% less plastic when compared to the current packaging. With this change, the new package becomes one of the lightest on the market, besides stop using 382 tons of plastic per year. The volume of plastic saved equals 2.4 Olympic swimming pools full of bottles. This reduction also represents less 281 trucks running in cities throughout the year and, consequently, less CO2 emission. Still in the beauty segment, DOVE also joins the company's efforts and launched a line of super-condicionadores using pipes made with 100% green plastic from sugar cane, contributing to the reduction in the emission of GHG gases. Where does the recycled material and how the partnership with cooperatives? About the origin of the recycled material, the focus will be on post consumer materials, depending on the volume have a more relevant impact on the environment. We know this is a great challenge and, therefore, also understand the importance of companies such as Unilever act as drivers of the demand for this type of material. We have to lead this change and positively impact all this chain. The most challenging part is to make the process start to spin. For that, we were careful to choose strategic partners, who are helping aUnilever to develop materials and sustainable packaging. The Wise, national capital company, our partner in the production of recycled resin (PCR), made a major investment in the processing and washing process to ensure decontamination of recycled material for composition of bottles of OMO Multi-action. Were also included laboratory testing to ensure the quality and safety of the packaging and the product. In practice, the consumer should not feel any changes in your experience, but choosing products with recycled material will be generating a much smaller impact on the environment. We continue working together to continually improve processes and increase the volume of PCR on packages. The limited edition of OMO Multi-action with plastic of the Brazilian coast came to call attention to the problem of plastic pollution in the oceans. Depending on the volume of recycled plastic required to meet the scale of production of Unilever, the definitive version of the new packaging that will go to the market with plastic collected from various sources in all Brazil, encouraging the chain as a whole. 4) what challenges to inclusion of recycled plastic bottles? How much material can be reused in a bottle/packaging taking into account technological issues? In Brazil, we conducted a thorough work with the partners involved in the production of packaging to include the determination of recycled resin (PCR) in the current manufacturing process. However, the amount of recycled plastic that can compose the bottles directly depends on the volume of plastic collected and recycled in jail. Although there is enough technology to increase the amount of recycled plastic in packaging, the low volume of collected material hinders the selection of materials that produce a resin with sufficient quality to compose and frame packages security to get to the market and the consumer. This process tends to gradually improve in accordance with the development of the chain. The consumer has a key role in this process, because the volume of recycled plastic depends on the awareness and sustainable attitude of society. The more suitable for the disposal of plastic packaging of the products consumed, the greater the volume of recycled material produced and used in manufacturing processes. This is a transformation that is on all of us, market, Governments and society. Each attitude account for the progress of...