What if producers changed their products to be reusable or fully biodegradable? What if retailers leveraged their power within the supply chain by insisting on stocking shelves with these options? Producers would have to do the responsible thing, and put long-term environmental and human health before short-term profit. (Photo: Leonie Joubert) 
What should a small, under-funded municipality in one of the poorest parts of South Africa do with a faeces-sodden bundle of plastic and moisture-absorbent gel that’s virtually indestructible, and will sit in the environment for centuries longer than the lifespan of the person who wore it as a baby for just a few hours?
What does that municipality do when 3.1 tons of these are thrown out of people’s homes in that single district every year?
A recent survey by development non-profit Environmental and Rural Solutions (ERS) in a community in rural Matatiele in the Eastern Cape grasslands found that many parents said they’d use washable cloth nappies if they could get hold of them. But it’s shelf-to-shelf disposables, whether they’re shopping at a big retail chain in town, or down at the corner spaza shop.
Without reusable options, and no municipal waste trucks driving out to their remote countryside to collect the garbage, soiled nappies end up tossed into the veld where they will stay, almost unchanged, for hundreds of years. (Read Part 1 full story here.)
What if nappy producers changed their products to be reusable or fully biodegradable? What if retailers leveraged their power within the supply chain by insisting on stocking shelves with these options? Producers would have to do the responsible thing, and put long-term environmental and human health before short-term profit.
The question applies not just to nappy producers, but to corporations in all sectors whose production lines churn out commodities that cause harm to people or the environment. The economic system underpinning all these sectors — fossil-derived fuels and plastics from the same value chain; ultra-processed food-like products and sugary drinks; cigarettes; alcohol — is propped up by powerful corporations that are able to shape economic policies and value chains in their own interests, while leaving consumers or the state to pay for the costly treatments needed to address those harms.
These corporations often have greater influence over policy than the voting public because of their financial clout and proximity to the halls of power.
Retailers also maintain the status quo
Retailers who sell and advertise these products also have an outsized influence on what happens along value chains.
Public health bodies and civil society organisations regularly point to corporates’ responsibility to leverage this influence for the common good, ahead of profit.
“Retailers play a pivotal role in the value chain,” says Janine Osborne, chief executive officer of Sustainable Seas Trust, whose ocean conservation mandate has a plastic pollution focus. “They’re not just passive suppliers of consumer demand, they shape it.”
In terms of plastics production, Osborne points to retailers’ power to influence how products are designed, and how consumers engage with them.
“It’s no longer acceptable for retailers to deflect responsibility onto consumers. They must step up as champions of sustainable design, take ownership of the waste their shelves generate, and actively educate consumers about responsible disposal.”
Retailers don’t just have a moral responsibility to do this, according to prolific social justice and human rights activist Mark Heywood, but a legal duty, too.
“Legally, (retailers) should not do their business in a way that has a negative impact on human rights in the Constitution, such as to a healthy and safe environment,” he says. “They know exactly what they are doing. They are polluters, externalising their costs onto the environment and all our lives.”
Corporates also command massive budgets, which in Heywood’s view increases their moral responsibility.
“Their whole business is about behaviour change to get people to buy their products. If they were good corporate citizens they could use marketing and advertising, and combine it with pro-poor pricing, to educate and influence behaviours positively.”
I began canvassing some of the larger national retail chains, as well as two nappy suppliers, to see what their corporate policies are regarding single-use plastics across their value chains, and how this squares up with the single-use nappies they either stock on their shelves, or produce.
Retailers included Pick n Pay, Woolworths, and the Shoprite Group. After multiple attempts to get comment, only Woolworths replied, stating that it is “actively working towards removing single use plastic from (the) supply chain, with a focus on (its) home brand packaging”.
In terms of nappies, the company only stocks third-party single-use brands, such as Huggies and Pampers, and does not stock reusable nappies. It doesn’t have Woolworths-branded nappies.
“Should (Woolworths) look to include new items in our product range, we will ensure the values of our business and our Good Business Journey are considered,” according to its press office. They did not expand on what this means in real terms, and did not reply to further questions regarding whether the company would consider stocking washable nappy options.
Neither Procter & Gamble, which supplies the South African market with the Pampers brand, nor Kimberly-Clark South Africa, producer of Huggies, responded to requests for comment.
Corporate responsibility — both morally and legally — also applies to food and beverage corporates, according to Heywood.
“At times they are no better than the tobacco or alcohol industries, because they know what is harmful and unhealthy, but they still sell it and hide the evidence,” he says. “They also know that they can afford to make nutritious food much more affordable. But they don’t. It’s sickening. Literally.”
There are many ways that governments, corporates, and citizens can shift the system: policies, such as carrot-or-stick fiscal incentives like sin taxes or subsidies; criminal implications for serious environmental or health harms; education; championing change from within, such as a corporation making decisions to stock pro-health and pro-environment products.
The Sustainable Seas Trust Plastic-Free Seas Guidebook explains the many ways in which retailers can influence the design, manufacture, and waste-disposal options across the plastics value chain.
Here are examples that show the power that some companies have in their sectors, the harms from certain products and brands, cases where change can be made if there is sufficient will, or where pro-environment efforts have been deliberately obstructed. DM
PHOTO ESSAY
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Photo-1a-IMG_6853-copy.jpg "Nappies are said to live on in the environment for 50 to 500 years. But in reality, the plastic components never decompose. They break down into smaller and smaller pieces, as sun, heat or mechanical factors weaken them and tear them apart. Eventually they appear to degrade but simply become too small to see. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Photo-1b-IMG_5591-copy.jpg "These micro- and nano-plastic particles keep their industrial formulation permanently and continue to circulate in the environment. They will never compost in the way that, say, paper or wood do. Because most plastic materials have a significant number of chemicals added during the manufacturing process — many of which are toxic, cancer-causing, or disrupt the endocrine system — these chemicals can leach into the environment, or into the tissue of the animals and people who may have ingested the micro-particles. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Photo-2-IMG_7929-copy.jpg "Systems change over individual behaviour change: that’s the call to action from leading climate activist groups and scientists. Many climate activists are derided for driving cars with internal combustion engines, or eating food grown through polluting industrial processes, or banking with financial institutions that loan money for gas or oil exploration and extraction. But until the system provides more climate- and environmentally responsible products, services and institutions, activists will have to use the polluting options. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_7650-copy.jpg "Smokers get it in the neck for flicking their cigarette butts on the ground, and rightly so. But what if cigarette producers simply replaced plastic butts with biodegradable ones? Smokers would still need to discard their stompies responsibly. But a faster and immediately effective solution would be to prevent plastic butts getting into the value chain at all. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Photo-3b-graph-copy.jpg "A 2019 litter collection survey in the Overstrand Municipality in the Western Cape found that cigarette butts were by far the largest number of items coming out of their storm water drains, according to the WWF Plastics: Facts & Futures report. (Source: WWF)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Photo-4-IMG_7817-copy.jpg "The central flaw in the global use-and-discard economy is that it allows producers to profit from selling their product — be it cigarettes, junk food, or petrol. But it 'externalises' the health or environmental costs, leaving individuals or the government to pay for the cost of the pollution. Pollution comes in many forms. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Photo-5-IMG_7659-copy.jpg "Used stompies are one form of pollution from the cigarette industry. But smoking-related lung cancer or stroke can also be seen as a form of pollution, like an oil spill in a body that’s been damaged by long-term exposure to a highly addictive substance. Sugary and food-like products cause similar oil spills in people’s bodies after long-term use: obesity, complications relating to diabetes, and social stigma. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/WhatsApp-Image-2025-07-11-at-11.45.36_467d2135.jpg "Unilever’s popular Shield roll-on deodorant bottles are made from almost indestructible material. The company used to sell 50ml refill sachets to top these up, but the refills have been discontinued, according to Unilever’s media office. Unilever did not give a figure for how many bottles of Shield roll-on it currently sells, or how many sachets it used to sell. So the public can’t know how many bottles are thrown out each year, or how many bottles would be spread from single-use discarding if people could buy refill sachets. A roll-on bottle that’s as robust as these could be used for years. Now, every bottle is likely to be thrown out after about two months. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Photo-7-IMG_7721-copy.jpg "Sugary drinks like Coke also pollute people’s bodies. Decades of public health analysis recognises that long-term use of sugary drinks causes overweight and obesity, wilted erections, gangrenous toes, amputated limbs, lost eyesight, and dementia, along with heart problems, tooth decay and social stigma. The corporation has amassed huge wealth from selling an addictive product, but consumers are left to pay for the cost of their polluted and damaged bodies. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/WhatsApp-Image-2025-07-11-at-11.50.04_025008ca.jpg "Coca-Cola is one of the most recognisable companies on the planet. But once the consumer’s short-lived hit of dopamine has faded, that bottle of Coca-Cola throws a long shadow. The Coca-Cola Company is the world's biggest corporate plastics polluter, producing 120 billion throwaway plastic bottles per year. The pollution extends well beyond that. Every 1 litre of Coca-Cola produces 346 grams of carbon pollution, adding up to 5.45 million tons of carbon pollution dumped into the atmosphere annually. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Photo-9-IMG_7876-copy.jpg "'McDonald-ization'' and 'Coca-Colonization'. That’s how the public health community frames the cultural influence that big food and beverage corporations have in shaping what people consume and their attitudes towards food-like products. Research also shows a direct link between the role of advertising and marketing of fast foods and fizzy drinks brands, with overconsumption. A 2011 Lancet special report on obesity called these marketing tactics 'persuasive', 'pervasive', and 'predatory'. (Photo: Leonie Joubert)")
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Photo-10-IMG_7917-copy.jpg "'If you’re going to have a KitKat, just have one finger. You don’t have to eat the whole thing.' This is Nestlé’s regional communications and stakeholder engagement manager Connie Motau speaking at a University of Cambridge School for Sustainable Leadership event in 2020. This is a common framing by corporates, where they confer blame on consumers whom they argue need to exert willpower and moral backbone so that they can take responsibility for being healthful users of such products. This position ignores the overwhelming evidence that shows that many of these food-like products are deliberately formulated to be addictive, highly tasty, and binge-able. (Photo: Leonie Jourbert)")
This story is from Story Ark — tales from southern Africa’s climate tipping points, a multi-year mobile journalism project that’s investigating how the climate crisis is unfolding on our doorstep, in our lifetime. It is a collaboration with the Stellenbosch University School for Climate Studies and the Henry Nxumalo Foundation which supports investigative journalism.
It is also part of the Covering Climate Now 89 Percent Project, a yearlong global media collaboration aimed at highlighting the fact that the vast majority of people in the world care about climate change and want their governments to do something about it.