I found a Dutch post on LinkedIn accusing Pepsico of greenwashing. The following is a Google Translate version of the original Ducth Text
Original Linkedin Post in Dutch
Google Translation:
There is a lot of fuss about the new Lays chip packaging. These are now boxes instead of bags. According to PepsiCo, it has many advantages for the consumer, who, according to calculations by snack reviewer Eke Bosman, has to pay 54% more for it. Zwerfinator does not consider chips a primary necessity and there is no arguing about taste, but there are enough alternatives on the market. Anyone who wants to pay that much does so voluntarily and we will not discuss that any further.
There are many emotional pros and cons, but Zwerfinator was triggered by the text “NEW RECYCLABLE WITH PAPER” on the box. That is nice in itself of course, the chip bags of Lays are now made of plastic and aluminum that are bonded together in such a way that they are not recyclable and therefore do not belong in the plastic waste. But does the box only consist of cardboard or does it still contain plastic and aluminum? That is what Zwerfinator wondered.
So he bought a box of Lays Max to investigate this further and announced it on social media , which immediately generated a lot of response. After the box with the family had been devoured with relish, the packaging was placed in a tub of water to dismantle the packaging as Zwerfinator had done before.
After soaking overnight, the box fell apart into four parts, as shown in this photo.
Some of the individual parts still consisted of several layers, so they were placed back in the water, after which the packaging could be broken down into nine parts.
After some more soaking of the parts, which are made of different materials, and careful picking and fiddling, the packaging was finally dismantled into 11 parts: 5 of cardboard and 6 of plastic and/or aluminum.
According to the instructions on the packaging, the membrane may be disposed of with the residual waste and the rest with the waste paper. The average consumer, like the Zwerfinator, will not know exactly what the membrane is, but it is probably the soft lid with which the inner bag is closed and which consists of plastic and aluminum. That is the middle square in the photo above.
According to Lays, the rest can all be recycled with the waste paper. Including the plastic and the aluminium. These layers are not easy to remove, so the consumer who neatly throws the packaging in the waste paper according to the instructions unintentionally pollutes this stream. And whether the paper farmer is happy about it, that is of course also the question.
The box has many similarities with a drinks carton (#pakzooi), so the packaging would be better off being put in the PMD. It should be noted that the recycling of this is also rather poor. At most, the cardboard part is then made into toilet paper or corrugated cardboard. The rest is usually burned.
After separating, the different parts were also weighed on the kitchen scale. The cardboard parts weighed 53 grams and the plastic and aluminum parts 11 grams. If we assume that the cardboard would indeed be recycled, this means that 83% of the packaging is recyclable. That is a good score in itself.
But now Zwerfinator also found a regular Lays chip bag on the street yesterday. That was also put on the scale for comparison and it only weighed 8 grams.
This means that the new box contains more plastic and aluminum than the regular Lays chip bag. Taking into account that there can be inaccuracies in the kitchen scale, we will now assume that there is just as much plastic and aluminum in the box as in the bag. And that is strange because the bag contains 150 grams of chips and the box contains 125 grams. Just as much plastic and aluminum for 16.7% less chips.
And finally, that 53 grams of cardboard. Hopefully, that will be recycled, or well, downcycled. But that is actually just an extra casing around the chip bag. If that had not existed, it would not have had to be produced, collected and recycled. Or burned, because that is of course what will happen to most of these packages. All unnecessary use of materials.
And nowhere on the packaging can Zwerfinator find the FSC quality mark. So the cardboard most likely does not come from sustainable sources. Otherwise they would have put that on the packaging, companies like to brag about that.
You can draw all sorts of conclusions based on this little study. Zwerfinator thinks that PepsiCo is simply putting a monstrosity of packaging on the market here, but is mainly concerned about the fact that there is still no good legislation to prevent these kinds of missteps – which are contrary to every idea of sustainability.
Finally: There are also just chip bags that are only made of plastic. Without an aluminum layer. They can be recycled. PepsiCo could have chosen that too. But they didn’t.
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