What better way for a company that produces one of the world’s largest plastic trash than to replace plastic with paper packaging and also make it an effective marketing tool. You have to credit Nestlé, the company that had gained notoriety for its pathetic low ethical standards and almost total lack of social responsibility, of turning a new leaf and getting innovative.
Nestlé Japan has come out with an innovative idea of not only replacing its KitKat plastic wrappers with the environmentally-friendly paper ones but also as a marketing gimmick. The wrapper contains instructions that let the users create origami paper cranes, thereby curbing littering too.
Although this initiative will help Nestlé reduce plastic waste by approximately 380 tonnes per year, the environmental groups believe this is not enough. This has forced the company to take steps to make its packaging 100 percent recyclable or reusable by 2025.
Greenpeace Oceans campaigner, Graham Forbes, trashes Nestlé’s claims on GreenPeace website, thus, “Nestlé’s statement on plastic includes more of the same greenwashing baby steps to tackle a crisis it helped to create.” He adds, “The statement is full of ambiguous or nonexistent targets, relies on ‘ambitions’ to do better and puts the responsibility on consumers, rather than the company to clean up its own plastic pollution.”
The concern of environmentalists is not misplaced. A movement called Greenpeace Plastics is endeavoring to limit the use of plastics around the globe to make water, food, and air free of its toxic byproducts. And according to one of its campaigners, Nestlé is one of the biggest culprits in producing throwaway plastics.
Although Nestlé’s seriousness in cleaning up the environment is still suspect, the paper wrapper initiative by KitKat is a ray of hope of in company’s efforts to reduce single-use plastics.
