In 2004 the late University of Michigan management guru CK Prahalad extolled the value of sachet packaging in his bestselling book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits. Sachet packaging of small amounts of products such as shampoo, toothpaste and conditioner allows the global poor to afford these products instead of the more expensive, typically one-litre, packaged bottles and containers in western countries.

Sachet packaging, normally made of a thin film of plastic and aluminum in a sandwich laminate form, has captured many of the poor market segments and has allowed giants such as Unilever and P&G to gain market share and profit. It has also allowed the poor to enjoy quality products such as shampoos, toothpastes, lotions, condiments, even ready-to-eat food and drinking water from these global giants, products which were previously not viable with normal bottle and container packaging.

There is no question that sachets have brought better quality products to poor communities. The problem is that they have become a waste nightmare. Municipal waste volumes are projected to grow worldwide as adoption of these sachet products increases.

In the Philippines for example, the Asian Development Bank and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources jointly project that if current trends continue, the country will need 200 new landfills the size of a current Manila landfill by the year 2020. Estimates vary, but the factor of 0.7kg per person in the metropolitan Manila area is being used, with a daily output of roughly 22,000 tons per day of municipal garbage expected to grow to 28,000 tons per day in 10 years' time.

Because there is no economic incentive to collect used sachets that have been improperly dumped, no one bothers to pick these up. this contrast with a one-litre plastic bottle that might be worth something once collected and returned for its deposit. When scattered indiscriminately, these sachets clog drains and contribute to flooding. They are also unsightly, littering the cities and the countryside with the brand names of the big corporations.

Sachets also undermine the reduce, reuse and recycle system. Many people will pick up large soft drink or shampoo PET bottles and segregate these for recycling. But spent sachets, coated with used product such as shampoo, will not be physically segregated by consumers even if they contain plastic and metal film. Instead, they end up as trash – often in landfills where they do not really biodegrade. If the sachets even make it to landfill, that is.

This is critical especially in Asia where urbanisation is taking hold quickly. Urbanisation has the tendency to shift the type of wastes generated by people from mostly agricultural biomass (which is biodegradable and can be composted) to mostly pre-packaged ready-to-consume products. People in farming communities might have a typical diet of fruit, vegetables and livestock, all of which can be cooked and composted. When they move to the cities, they begin to eat pre-packaged ready-to-eat meals with a variety of paper and plastic wrapping.

Thus waste sustainability is fast becoming an issue, threatening to overrun landfills and create new ones from what are otherwise beautiful landscapes and endangering the water supply by contamination. Also, many communities refuse to become host to landfills.

Biodegradable sachets are available, but these are more expensive and affect the sensitive low-product price points – the main justification for offering the product in sachet form in the first place. Companies are also concerned about the integrity of the product, and many are concerned that the package might biodegrade before the end of the product's useful life.

There are some companies, such as Unilever, trying to show that spent sachets can be used as binders for concrete. The problem is that few people want to use these bricks for serious purposes like their own house construction. The bricks end up being used for non-critical applications such as sidewalks and often have to be given away.

The problem with this approach is that, while noble in objective, it's a token public relations' effort that does not really solve the problem, as it doesn't answer issues with economies of scale. Cement manufacturing is a very energy-intensive activity, and using concrete in applications where no one wants to use the product is unsustainable. After all, would you want to use concrete blocks with waste sachets for your own house?

The sachet business model is successful and it has proved it works on one level, but there needs to be much more work on improving the waste sustainability side.

Dennis Posadas is the author of Greenergized (UK: Greenleaf, 2013) and is working on a new business fable on corporate sustainability. He is a technical consultant for clean energy and low carbon transport projects in the Philippines

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