By Karen Lema
MANILA, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Armed with gloves, rubber bootsand a rake, "Mangrove Warrior" Willer Gualva, 68, comes toFreedom Island in the Philippines almost every day to stop itbeing engulfed by trash.
No one lives on the island, yet each morning its shores arecovered in garbage, much of it single-use sachets of shampoo,toothpaste, detergent and coffee that are carried out to sea bythe rivers of overcrowded Manila.
"We collect mostly plastics here and the number one type aresachets," said Gualva, one of 17 people employed by theenvironment agency to help preserve the island and its forest.The agency, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources(DENR), calls them "Mangrove Warriors", and pays them slightlyabove $8 per day.
Five days of coastal cleanup on the Manila Bay island lastmonth yielded a total of 16,000 kg of trash, DENR data showed,the bulk of it plastics, including the sachets made of aluminiumand blends of plastics.
These packets give some of the poorest people in Asia accessto everyday household essentials. For the multinationals thatmanufacture them, it's a way to increase sales by targetingcustomers who cannot afford bigger quantities.
Such sachets are sold in most developing countries but thenumber consumed in the Philippines is staggering - 163 millionpieces a day, according to a recent study by environment groupThe Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).
That's almost 60 billion sachets a year, or enough to cover130,000 soccer fields.
In Manila's slum areas which are inaccessible to garbagetrucks, sachets and other waste are thrown in estuaries ordumped on the street, and end up clogging drains and waterways.
"Money is hard to come by, so I only buy sachets," said LisaJorillo, 42, a mother of four who lives in a slum in Manila'sTondo area, behind a beach blanketed by trash.
"It's likely the garbage will still be there when my songrows up," Jorillo said, referring to her four-year-old.
The Philippines' law on solid waste is poorly enforced andthe country doesn't regulate packaging manufacturing. Thecountry is ranked third in the world for failing to deal withits plastics, according to a 2015 study by the University ofGeorgia, which said 81 percent of plastics waste in the countrywas mismanaged.
SACHETS FOR THE POOR
About 14 million people live in Metro Manila, one of Asia'steeming mega-cities. Overall, the Philippines has a populationof 107 million people, and one-fifth of them live below thenational poverty line, described by the statistics agency asmonthly consumption of less than $241 per person.
Jorillo's family earns about 2,500 pesos ($48) a week fromthe construction work that her husband does, and she and herfamily buy about 80 sachets of coffee, toothpaste and shampooeach month.
In sea-facing Manila, much of the trash ends up in the sea.The Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and China accountfor 60 percent of the world's marine plastic, or 8 milliontonnes annually, according to the Ocean Conservancy non-profit.
Environmentalists say the main culprits aren't governmentsor consumers, but the multinationals that churn out plasticpackaging.
"They have money to do research that will remove theproblematic packaging," said Sonia Mendoza, head of the MotherEarth Foundation, which promotes waste reduction. She saidrefilling stations could be one way to reduce the use ofsingle-use sachets.
The environmental group GAIA studied non-recyclable wastecollected in Philippine cleanups and found that 60 percent of itcame from just 10 companies, led by Nestle, Unileverand Procter & Gamble.
Nestle declined to disclose the volume of sachets itproduced or sold in the Philippines.
FIGHTING MALNUTRITION
Nestle said it was committed to finding ways to keepplastics out of oceans through plastic collection and recyclingprogrammes, but added that sachets prevented leakage ofmicro-nutrients essential to addressing malnutrition, especiallyamong children.
Unilever did not say how many sachets it produces in thePhilippines, but said its global plastic packaging production is610,000 tonnes annually.
The figure, Unilever said, includes "flexible packagingformats" used by 1 million micro-businesses in the Philippines.Nestle and Unilever's target is for 100% of their packagingto be recyclable or reusable by 2025 worldwide.
Unilever said it has a community-based sachet recoveryprogramme in the Philippines where collected sachets areconverted to school chairs and cement pavers. It also pilot ranshampoo and conditioner refilling stations this year, which itplans to scale up.
P&G referred questions to the industry group PhilippineAlliance for Recycling and Materials Sustainability (PARMS) orthe government's National Solid Waste Management Commission(NSWMC).
The Philippines government does not have a clear strategy totackle its plastics crisis.
In an e-mail response to Reuters, the DENR said it was indiscussions with all manufacturers to identify ways to managewaste. It provided no details.
Elsewhere in the region, Indonesia has a law requiringproducers to manage non-biodegradable packaging and the touristisland of Bali bans single-use plastics.
Thailand is between now and 2025 introducing bans on seventypes of plastics most commonly found in the ocean, like bottlecap seals, disposable bags, cups and straws.
Vietnam hopes to raise taxes on plastic bags and its primeminister has urged shops to stop using non-recyclable plasticsin cities by 2021, and countrywide by 2025.
ECO-BRICKS
The Philippines industry group PARMS, which includesUnilever, P&G and Nestle among its members, is building a 25million pesos ($475,000) facility that aims to turn sachets intoplastic blocks and eco-bricks.
But Von Hernandez, global coordinator for the Break FreeFrom Plastic movement, calls that "greenwashing" - or onlytrying to appear more environmentally friendly.
"They are not really changing the true nature of theirbusiness," Hernandez said of the multinationals. "The plasticsindustry is slated to grow exponentially, especially by 2030.The bulk of that is going to packaging and you can bet this isgoing to end up in sachets."
Crispian Lao, president of PARMS, said every effort, eventhose which "may be perceived as small and insignificant", helpsaddress the problem.
Lao said sachets were a necessity for lower income groups,but added the industry is exploring other delivery formats andpackaging alternatives.
Cynthia Villar, a senator, says she is pushing for a radicalre-write of an existing waste law to force firms to collect,recycle and dispose of all single-use plastics they produce.
"They always say they're willing to do it. But it's adifferent story altogether whether they'll do it, so we have toembody it in a law so they'll all follow," Villar told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Khanh Vu in HANOI, PatpichaTanakasempipat in BANGKOK and Tabita Diela in JAKARTA; Editingby Martin Petty and Raju Gopalakrishnan)