P&G’s Fabric Care brands aim to cut 30 percent of all plastic packaging across Europe by 2025

26 Apr 2019 --- Under multinational FMCG giant Procter & Gamble (P&G), brands such as Ariel and Luxor have declared their commitment to sustainability through a planned 30 percent reduction of plastic in Fabric Care products across Europe by 2025, which the company says will be the equivalent of “one line of detergent bottles around the earth.”

The announcement comes in at the heels of the EU’s approval of a landmark plastics ban last March – The Single Use Plastics Directive (SUDP) – on ten single-use plastic types most commonly found on European beaches. Industry players are calling this bold move an opportunity to outgrow single-use lightweight plastics and explore newer, sustainable forms of packaging.

Water soluble packaging forms like detergent pods, as an example, are one way to reduce plastic waste while delivering on convenience. “We are delighted that more and more consumers choose our Ariel PODS which is the most compacted detergent we are offering,” Volker Kuhn, Vice President Fabric Care at P&G says.

“As part of the initiative, Ariel PODS round tubs will move to bags, saving 75 percent of packaging per wash and P&G Fabric Care are aiming for full recyclability by 2022 across all packaging. These planned plastics reductions from Ariel, Lenor and other P&G Fabric Care brands add up to more than 15,000 tons per year by 2025 vs 2018,” he adds.

Yesterday at the Sustainable Brands Paris conference, senior Company officials presented a forward-looking framework within the “Brand 2030” criteria, which expresses the overarching goal of achieving 100 percent recyclable or reusable packaging by 2030.

“We’re delighted to see P&G make further commitments to tackling plastic packaging waste. Through “The UK Plastics Pact”, of which P&G is a founding member, we are working together with business, governments and citizens to transform the way we make, use and dispose of plastic – keeping it in the economy and out of the environment,” says Marcus Gover, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) CEO.

Other leading P&G brands proclaim individual sustainability ambitions
Three of P&G’s prominent brands have stepped forward to announce their sustainability targets for the upcoming decades. Detergent brand Ariel is aiming for a 50 percent reduction in its utilization of resources from “key impact areas,” such as energy and water. Diaper brand Pampers highlights a reduction of material weight in their products by 18 percent over the last three years, with further plans to launch recycling facilities in 3 cities by 2021. The Herbal Essences hair care brand spotlights its efforts to reduce ocean waste through its limited edition Beach Plastic bottles, made from shoreline waste and designed in collaboration with TerraCycle.

Last February at the Petcore Europe Conference, P&G announced project “HolyGrail,” which is a full value chain investigation of how current sorting lines can be improved through modules that can simply be “added onto” existing lines to improve recycling processes. One example is adding special watermarks to packaging, which have been developed by partner companies Digimarc and FiliGrade. Watermarks can replace both QR codes and barcodes and be scanned by cash registers, consumer smartphones and, in this case, automated sorting machines to improve the sorting and recycling process. P&G is now running final proof of concept trials for project HolyGrail and plans to go live in May following industrial trials.

By Benjamin Ferrer