Unilever Bangladesh launched the first-ever liquid refill machine of its kind — URefill — that saves Bangladeshis money when they bring back their bottles to purchase and refill liquid products (soap, detergent, etc.), Yahoo Finance reported. This large corporation is tackling plastic pollution head-on, using innovative technology to shift the culture of single-use plastic products.
"We have been collecting and processing more plastic than we sell in Bangladesh since 2022," Sabera Haque, category head at Unilever, said, per The Business Standard.
Products are routinely packaged in plastic that gets thrown out without a second thought when the product is finished.
Globally, only 9% of plastic waste gets recycled. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found: "50% ends up in landfill and 22% evade waste management systems and goes into uncontrolled dumpsites, is burned in open pits or ends up in terrestrial or aquatic environments."
Though plastic is cheap to produce, we pay the price at every step of its life cycle.
Plastic is made from dirty raw materials, including natural gas, crude oil, and coal. The production process typically involves dangerous extraction (mining and fracking) and high-heat processes that release harmful gases (carbon dioxide) and toxic substances (volatile organic compounds, or VOCs) into the air.
Tiny plastic pellets from plastic plants often leach into waterways, where they are eaten by wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity found.
Reducing and recycling plastic waste disrupts the plastic production demand, triggering a domino effect of human-, wildlife-, and planet-health protection effects.
Scientists in South Korea have found a way to decompose PET plastic, ensuring effective plastic recycling. German scientists have developed an innovative method to identify plastic among e-waste.
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Saving money 💰 Unilever Bangladesh aims to significantly reduce plastic waste by encouraging consumers to bring their own bottles to URefill machines to purchase products.
Each refill, Unilever Bangladesh found, cuts consumers' carbon footprint by 90% while saving consumers at least 20% on the cost of goods, according to Yahoo Finance. Bangladeshi consumers are finding URefill machines to be an easy and attractive way to save money, with approximately 43% of the users so far being returning customers, The Business Standard reported.
"We are scaling up our initiative and rolling out more machines in the coming months to meet the growing interest of consumers and retail shops," Unilever Bangladesh Homecare marketing director Shadman Sadikin said, per Yahoo Finance.
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