The Plastic Credit Exchange (PCEx), the country’s first homegrown global non-profit plastic offset organization, has launched a waste-to-cash program that aims to cover 897 barangays in the city of Manila over the next three years.
A statement showed that PCEx founder Nanette Medved-Po and Manila Mayor Isko Moreno Domagoso recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that targets to roll out the 'Aling Tindera Waste-to-Cash' program to 100 network partners over three years.
The project, which will be done in partnership with the support of the PepsiCo Foundation, aims to incentivize women-owned sari-sari stores to become collection points for post-consumer plastic waste.
It also wants to establish community infrastructure for the aggregating, storing, and efficient transport of plastic waste to partner processing facilities.
‘Aling Tinderas’ are women sari-sari store owners invited by the City of Manila to partake in this initiative. To jumpstart their new micro-enterprise, PCEx will provide each one with a purposefully designed 20-foot plastic wasre container, one manual baler donated by the PepsiCo Foundation, and starting capital.
The Aling Tindera container will serve as an aggregation hub where any member of the community may sell post-consumer plastic by the kilogram.
Through this project, bystanders will be empowered not only to depollute their environment, but make extra income.
Meanwhile, using the manual baler, Aling Tindera compacts the plastics she buys into blocks that are easier to store and transport. Once she fills up her container, offset partners through PCEx purchase the lot from her and ensure they are processed using environmentally sound technologies.
Together with SGV & Co.’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services (CCaSS) practice, PCEx will perform compliance audits for both plastic footprint as well as the entire value chain of the offset operations, including the Aling Tindera plastic collection model.
“We hope to expand our network of professional services firms and work with them to refine standards for verification to make sure that we are doing our part to make sure that no plastic winds up in nature,” said Medved-Po.
For his part, Mayor Isko Domagoso said he chose to partner with PCEx because the Aling Tindera Program is “applicable, doable, and sustainable” and “malaking bagay ito for the environment”.
“We are very grateful to as it will also generate some income for the community
more sensible and responsible citizens to participate," Domagoso further said.
PepsiCo Corporate Affairs Head for the Philippines and Asia, Anne Marie Corominas also said that her organization "realizes no single organization or industry can solve the plastic waste challenge on their own".
"That is why we’re working with PCEx and communities in Manila through the Aling Tindera program to accelerate systemic change and meaningful progress through collaborative, holistic and sustainable solutions in the Philippines," Corominas said.