Unilever secretly fought ban on plastic sachets |
An investigation by Reuters reveals that Unilever privately lobbied against a ban on plastic sachets used for soap while publicly describing the packaging as “evil” because it could not be recycled. The CEO of the consumer goods giant, Alan Jope, said the business “had to” stop using the sachets to package small portions of soap, detergent and shampoo two years ago but behind the scenes, the company privately lobbied against bans on the packaging that had been proposed in India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, where they were contributing to mountains of plastic waste and pollution. Separately, Jesse Fried, the Dane Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, writes in the Telegraph on how Unilever’s capitulation to the demands of an anti-Israel lobby group to stop selling Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in the Jewish state has led to the collapse of the business set up by licensee Avi Zinger, who employs hundreds of Arabs, Jews, and Sudanese refugees in Israel to distribute and sell the product.