By Saabira Chaudhuri
Procter & Gamble Co. is facing mounting pressure to deal
with the waste generated by used diapers and sanitary pads, forcing
the owner of Pampers and Always to find ways to collect and recycle
these products.
The pressure is particularly acute in India, a small but highly
promising market for makers of sanitary products where the
government is increasingly cracking down on waste.
Diaper and sanitary pad makers are grappling with scrutiny
elsewhere too amid rising concerns about single-use plastic. The
European Union, by 2021, will require labels for sanitary pads
describing recommended disposal and their negative environmental
impact. The Canadian province of Ontario is seeking public comment
on whether diapers and sanitary waste should be banned from
landfills. And the Pacific island of Vanuatu will from December ban
children's disposable diapers amid concerns about single-use
plastic.
In India, the runway for growth is huge. Most women still use
washable cloth every month, but the market for sanitary pads is
projected to double between 2018 and 2023, according to
Euromonitor. That is compared with 0.8% growth in the U.S. The
market for diapers is projected to grow 59% in India compared with
2.5% in the U.S.
P&G dominates India's sanitary market with its Whisper
brand. It has convinced millions of Indian women to switch to
disposable pads, through television advertising and education
programs in schools. The country is among P&G's fast growing
markets, and about 20% of women there now use disposable pads, up
from 11% eight years ago, according to Motilal Oswal.
But as the market has grown, so has the waste from it.
In the U.S., sanitary pads and diapers are bagged with other
trash to be sent to tightly controlled landfills or incinerators.
In India, much of this waste lies in open dumps or is buried in the
ground, posing health risks. Many women discard used pads in rivers
or put them in toilets, contaminating water supplies or causing
sewage to back up.
India also uses a network of waste pickers who trawl through
trash looking for recyclables. In recent years, they increasingly
have come into direct contact with used diapers and sanitary pads,
which pose health risks.
"Sanitary waste disposal has become an increasing problem in
India," the country's Central Pollution Control Board wrote in
guidelines last year for how such waste should be managed.
Swach, a cooperative for 3,500 waste pickers in the city of
Pune, has for years tried to encourage women to make sanitary waste
identifiable by wrapping used pads in newspaper marked with a red
dot.
It sent bags of used sanitary pads to the Indian headquarters of
P&G and Johnson & Johnson, which owns the Stayfree brand,
in 2013 after it says repeated requests for the companies to
provide or subsidize disposal wrappers elicited no response.
In 2016, the government published rules requiring companies to
provide disposal wrappers for diapers and sanitary pads, pay for
waste-management systems and explore recyclable alternatives. Swach
and other waste-picker groups say the companies still don't provide
wrappers for some products and that when these are provided they
are badly designed, often spilling open.
P&G said it provides wrappers with many of its sanitary pads
in India and educates consumers about disposal through TV
advertising, school programs and on-pack labeling. J&J said it
is participating in feasibility studies to help address
environmental issues and supporting education programs to foster
better user behavior.
P&G pledged last year to open a recycling facility in India
in 2019, but the effort has stalled. A P&G spokesman said the
company doesn't have a date by which the India recycling facility
will open.
A pilot program to collect sanitary pads run by the Feminine and
Infant Hygiene Association -- a trade body representing P&G,
J&J and others -- was meant to start in Pune in January, said
Ketaki Ghatge, assistant medical officer at Pune Municipal Corp. It
hasn't because of disagreements about whether the companies or the
municipality should pay to transport waste and for workers' gloves
and bags, according to Harshad Barde, a legal consultant at
Swach.
It is rare for consumer goods companies to run recycling plants,
but the practice is slowly starting to catch on as governments
crack down on waste generated by everyday products.
Collecting big volumes of waste is essential for any recycling
effort to be viable.
P&G, through a joint venture, operates what it says is the
world's only commercial recycling facility for sanitary pads and
diapers in Italy. The site relies on receiving waste that is
already collected separately by the government. Waste is steamed at
high pressure and temperature to remove pathogens. The raw material
can then be used to make things like cardboard, waste bins and
underwater cables, although the joint venture is still waiting on
government approval to start selling to manufacturers.
P&G also is running a trial in Amsterdam to see if
households will drop off used diapers in centrally located
bins.
In India, the companies agreed to pay waste pickers one rupee,
or about one U.S. cent, per kilogram of sanitary waste as part of
the pilot, Mr. Barde said.
"They say they can't afford more because there's no market for
recyclable material yet," he said. Waste pickers, he added, have
little incentive to collect sanitary waste and keep it separate to
other trash for such low returns, while the logistics of tracking
and weighing such waste cost more than the companies are
offering.
Representatives for the hygiene association didn't respond to
requests for comment on cost.
Write to Saabira Chaudhuri at saabira.chaudhuri@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 03, 2019 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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