Environmental impacts of extended producer responsibility programs for plastic sachets

The fast-moving consumer goods industry is one of the main producers of plastic, especially in the Philippines. Because of sachet marketing, millions of plastic sachets get disposed of everyday in the country. With the passing of the new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Act of 2022, producers of plastic packaging must now recover 80% of their plastic footprint by 2028 through EPR programs. With this, it is important to study the environmental impacts of these programs to ensure sustainability. Three actions were analyzed using material flow analysis & life cycle assessment: (1) replacement with refillable packaging, (2) increased collection to landfill and co-processing, and (3) establishing recycling plants. Plastic flow data from previously conducted analyses were projected to 2028 using the industry growth rate. It was estimated that at business-as-usual, around 145,000 tons of sachet waste would be produced annually. Among the three scenarios that could help solve this problem, only scenario (1) had lower environmental impacts than business-as-usual. It is recommended that policymakers incentivize reduction programs while requiring environmental impact mitigation for programs that deal with co-processing and recycling to pellets. Similar studies should also be done for other types of EPR programs for other products along with economic analyses.