Less is more: Quantifying non-functional slack filling and its role in reducing global packaging waste

Despite substantial research into policy interventions, harm reduction and alternative materials, plastic pollution is a worsening environmental and waste management crisis for countless governments and ecosystems. In response, the recent Global Plastics Treaty negotiations have highlighted urgent actions, including the “prevention and reduction of waste” and elimination of “unnecessary plastics.” Non-functional slack filling (or packaging that is intentionally underfilled) is a poorly documented tactic used by manufacturers to increase profits while maintaining consumer confidence. Here we describe the amount of slack fill and non-functional slack fill (excess packaging) for 17 and 366 products, respectively, that were sampled by citizen scientists based in 24 countries. On average, the material associated with the non-functional slack filling space equated to 38% of the total packaging, with >60% of the packaging for 39 products considered to be surplus. Confectionery (e.g., candy, cookies) and cleaning/sanitary products (e.g., laundry soap) had the highest amounts of non-functional slack filling (42 and 40% respectively), followed by pet food and human food (39% and 37% respectively). Our results highlight the prevalence of excess, non-functional packaging across multiple countries and product categories. This problem presents an important opportunity to reduce excessive and largely avoidable amounts of unnecessary plastic production and waste, thereby improving transport efficiency, but this can likely only be achieved with international standards, binding agreements and industry innovation

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