For years, producers have been violating waste prevention rules for marketing purposes

Also, one plastic bottle of fabric softener weighs twice as much as another. This is according to a comparative study by the environmental organisation Recycling Netwerk. Yet, Dutch legislation has stipulated for 25 years that packaging should be as light as possible. The trick with the heavy whisky bottle Many spirit bottles are much heavier […]

Rob Buurman

13 Nov 2019

Also, one plastic fabric softener bottle weighs twice as much as another. This is revealed by a comparative study by environmental organisation Recycling Netwerk. Nevertheless, Dutch legislation has stipulated for 25 years that packaging must be as light as possible.

The trick with the heavy whisky bottle

Many spirit bottles are much heavier than necessary. The difference in the weight of the empty bottle is huge: some whisky bottles are up to 4 times heavier than the lightest bottle, despite having exactly the same capacity. This is shown by a comparative study of 66 spirit bottles.

The study shows that beverage producers often use more glass than necessary. The reason for making the bottles heavier is likely related to marketing: with a heavier bottle, a consumer subliminally has the 'feeling' of buying a more valuable bottle with more contents.

The differences in the weight of empty bottles with the same volume are very large. For example, an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Blenders’ Batch whisky weighs only 355 grams. The more expensive variant, the Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky, weighs 1,399 grams. That bottle therefore weighs about 4 times as much, and that for exactly the same content of 700 centilitres of whisky!

Bokma also uses this trick: 1 litre of Bokma Oude Friesche Graanjenever is packaged in a bottle of 342 grams; 1 litre of Bokma Citroen Jenever in a package of 619 grams of glass, which is 80 percent extra.

Unnecessarily increasing the weight of bottles is a frequent occurrence. A third of the bottles studied were at least twice as heavy as necessary. Indeed, the Blenders' Batch bottle proves that 355 grams of packaging is sufficient to package the whisky and that weight reduction is technically not a problem. By using that light bottle as a reference, we calculated the relative overpackaging of the other bottles. 88 percent of the tested bottles were 25% or more overweight (see table 1 below).

Fabric softener bottles are also needlessly heavy

Most fabric softener bottles are also tens of percent heavier than the lightest bottle for the same amount of fabric softener.

The study compares the weight of fabric softener bottles currently on the market in the Netherlands. This reveals substantial weight differences between them. The bottles of the brands Robijn and Silan are about 30% to 50% heavier than the bottles of the supermarket chains AH and Jumbo.

See Table 2 below

For the lightest bottles in the study, “Morning Freshness” by Sendil and “4x concentrated” by Sensa, the producer uses only 5 grams of packaging to package 100 ml of product.

“That shows that in practice, plastic fabric softener bottles can easily comply with a standard of a maximum of 6.0 grams of packaging material per 100 ml”, says Recycling Netwerk.

And yet seventy percent of the bottles examined currently do not comply with this standard. For the heaviest bottle, “Natuurlijk” by Seepje, as much as 11.3 grams of packaging is used to package 100 ml of product. More than double the weight of packaging, for identically the same quantity of product.

Shampoo bottles also do not escape the marketing trick

The same story applies to 300 ml shampoo bottles sold in Dutch supermarkets. In 1994, the industry stated that it would switch to a lightweight bottle of 23 grams. But 25 years later, the lightest bottle found, 300 ml Baby Shampoo from Johnson’s, still weighs 27 grams. The heaviest bottle studied, Men Expert from L'Oreal, weighs 46.7 grams.

It is striking that the brand manufacturers L'Oreal, Schwarzkopf, Unilever and Procter and Gamble are responsible for the very heaviest shampoo bottles. Half of the bottles found are more than 30% too heavy; more than a quarter of the bottles found are more than 40% too heavy. The total prevention potential of this category of shampoo bottles is estimated to be good for a 20 to 30% reduction in plastic waste.

See Table 3 below

The trick with the heavy whisky bottle

The differences in the weight of empty bottles with the same volume are very large. For example, an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Blenders’ Batch whisky weighs only 355 grams. The more expensive variant, the Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky, weighs 1,399 grams. That bottle therefore weighs about 4 times as much, and that for exactly the same content of 700 centilitres of whisky!

Bokma also uses this trick: 1 litre of Bokma Oude Friesche Graanjenever is packaged in a bottle of 342 grams; 1 litre of Bokma Citroen Jenever in a package of 619 grams of glass, which is 80 percent extra.

Unnecessarily increasing the weight of bottles is a frequent occurrence. A third of the bottles studied were at least twice as heavy as necessary. Indeed, the Blenders' Batch bottle proves that 355 grams of packaging is sufficient to package the whisky and that weight reduction is technically not a problem. By using that light bottle as a reference, we calculated the relative overpackaging of the other bottles. 88 percent of the tested bottles were 25% or more overweight (see table 1 below).

Fabric softener bottles are also needlessly heavy

Most fabric softener bottles are also tens of percent heavier than the lightest bottle for the same amount of fabric softener.

See Table 2 below

For the lightest bottles in the study, “Morning Freshness” by Sendil and “4x concentrated” by Sensa, the producer uses only 5 grams of packaging to package 100 ml of product.

“That shows that in practice, plastic fabric softener bottles can easily comply with a standard of a maximum of 6.0 grams of packaging material per 100 ml”, says Recycling Netwerk.

Shampoo bottles also do not escape the marketing trick

The same story applies to 300 ml shampoo bottles sold in Dutch supermarkets. In 1994, the industry stated that it would switch to a lightweight bottle of 23 grams. But 25 years later, the lightest bottle found, 300 ml Baby Shampoo from Johnson’s, still weighs 27 grams. The heaviest bottle studied, Men Expert from L'Oreal, weighs 46.7 grams.

See Table 3 below

Read also: Trouw, An environmentally unfriendly marketing trick: a heavier bottle, that must taste good, 13 November 2019 RTL Z, Packaging rules violated: too heavy whiskey and shampoo bottles, 13 November 2019 Radar, ‘Many bottles are heavier than necessary’, 13 November 2019 Adformatie, Spirits bottle too heavy for years due to wrong marketing, 13 November 2019 FoodHolland, Recycling Netwerk: ‘Producers violate waste prevention rules because of marketing’, 13 November 2019 AfvalOnline, Recycling Netwerk wants enforcement on packaging weight, 13 November 2019

Marketing trick

“So those companies are not economical with raw materials. The legislation that obliges them to use the lightest possible packaging has existed for a quarter of a century. Only, the Dutch government does not enforce that law,” says the chairman of environmental organisation Recycling Netwerk. As a result, unnecessarily many raw materials are used for that packaging.

Legislation

Since 1994, the law has stipulated that packaging “shall be so manufactured that the packaging volume and weight be limited to the minimum adequate amount to maintain the necessary level of safety, hygiene and acceptability for the packed product and for the consumer”. This prevention obligation, which has already existed for 25 years, is therefore a dead letter in practice.

The Packaging Management Decree 2014 also stipulates that all packaging placed on the Dutch market must comply with the 'essential requirements' of the European Packaging Directive (94/62 EC) of 20 December 1994. Packaging must also be designed and manufactured in such a way as to prevent the generation of litter as much as possible.

The essential requirements correspond to the 1994 law and therefore mean that packaging volume and weight are “limited to the minimum adequate amount to maintain the necessary level of safety, hygiene and acceptability for the packed product and for the consumer.”

Enforcement

However, the enforcement of the prevention obligation received little attention. Since 2010, “attention was focused on a Framework Agreement with agreements on recycling of packaging waste, but without any agreement on waste prevention. Since then, waste prevention has been 'left to the market'”, writes consultancy bureau B&G.

“A citizen who does not respect the law receives a fine immediately. Companies that unnecessarily waste raw materials for marketing reasons and thus do not respect the law have been getting away with it for 25 years. We are counting on the Dutch government to put an end to that,” says environmental organisation Recycling Netwerk.

In Lansink's Ladder, waste prevention is the most important rung on the ladder. After all, every kilogram of plastic or glass that does not enter the market means one kilogram of waste less. Therefore, Lansink's Ladder states that prevention must be given priority within waste policy.

Environmental organisation Recycling Netwerk has submitted an enforcement request to the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT).