Single-use plastics are a growing concern in the Philippines, but it is the sachets—small, sealed packaging—that are particularly alarming. Comprising an estimated 52% of the residual plastic waste stream, sachets have been accumulating in the environment, where they defile the natural landscape, choke waterways, harm wildlife, and threaten livelihoods like tourism and fisheries. Filipinos use a staggering amount—around 164 million per day.
Sachets are widely perceived as affordable, convenient, and indispensable, but only because their true costs are externalized, unaccounted for by corporations that have profited handsomely from the sachet economy, and disproportionately paid for by society.
