Big Love For Less Waste

Waste is one of the most visible sustainability challenges for our industry and society—and it’s one that parents see every time they change a diaper as more than 60% of its total environmental impact comes from the sourcing and production of its raw materials. We’re embracing this issue head-on, but it needs some big love—bigger than we can give it on our own.

We believe in the power of innovation and collective action, and we are investing $10 million globally in partnerships and alliances to help accelerate change. Working with parents, our partners and key industry players, we can reduce our ecological footprint and make a less wasteful world for babies to grow up in.

Big love for improved packaging

Packaging waste is front of mind for many of us today, but it’s something that we at Pampers have been working on reducing for a long time.

All of our diaper packaging is recyclable, where the local infrastructure exists. We also aim to reduce our use of virgin petroleum-based plastics in our packaging materials by 50% by 2030.

Big love for lighter diapers

If you’re a parent, it’ll come as no surprise that the average baby will use a few thousand diapers before they’re potty trained, which amounts to over 330 pounds of diapering waste. But if that baby wears Pampers, they will now use about 40 pounds less in diaper raw materials on average, compared to 2015, while still getting the highest diaper quality and performance. That’s progress!

Over the last 30 years we have reduced the weight of our diapers by 40%, by using more effective materials and through innovative product design. We will continue to invest in innovation to reduce our material usage. Not only does this use less raw materials and create less waste, but lighter diapers are also more comfortable for babies and toddlers to wear.

Big love for finding new solutions to waste

Moms and dads are very aware of the visible issue of waste—not just what fills the diaper, but where it goes afterwards! We’re dedicated to innovating and working with our partners to reduce diaper waste—so much so that we’re investing over $10 million in partnerships and alliances globally to help identify circular economy solutions for diaper waste, and we’ll share our learnings to help accelerate the whole industry towards less waste.

Just like a baby’s learning journey, we’re discovering more all the time. We’ve learned a lot from our “smart bins” collection pilots in Paris, Kobe City, and Amsterdam, which have taught us more about parents’ attitudes toward waste.

We will continue investing in new waste management technologies and creating new partnerships with key experts. Every country is different, and our global tests are helping us find the best solutions by understanding local waste regulations, collection practices and parents’ habits.

Managing diaper waste is a complex task, but we are committed to continuing our work on it.