The Plastic Credit Exchange, the country’s first homegrown global non-profit plastic offset organization, together with the City of Manila and with the support of the PepsiCo Foundation recently introduced the Aling Tindera Waste-to-Cash program to address the mounting plastic waste crisis.
Along with their teams, PCEx founder Nanette Medved-Po and Manila Mayor Isko Moreno Domagoso signed a memorandum of agreement to roll out 100 network partners over three years covering all the city’s 897 barangays.
Under the Aling Tindera program, PCEx incentivizes women-owned sari-sari stores to become collection points for post-consumer plastic waste and establishes the community infrastructure for the aggregating, storing and efficient transport of the waste to partner processing facilities. Among the many benefits of the project are increased income opportunities for women micro-entrepreneurs and city residents; a more organized informal sector of waste collectors; cleaner environments and improved health.
“We couldn’t be happier to work with the Mayor and his team who have passionately demonstrated their commitment to the improvement of Manila. We hope that our program will have a positive impact on the City’s citizens and on the environment that we all share,” Medved-Po said.
Speaking at the signing, Domagoso said he chose to team up with PCEx because the Aling Tindera Program is “applicable, doable, and sustainable” and “malaking bagay ito for the environment”. He said, “We are very grateful to [PCEx] as it will also generate some income for the community” and encourage “more sensible and responsible citizens to participate.”
PepsiCo corporate affairs head for the Philippines and Asia Anne Marie Corominas said: “PepsiCo 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.”
The initiative forms part of PCEx’s broader plastic offset mechanism inspired by the carbon offset industry. Plastic offsetting enables businesses to take action in stopping plastic waste from polluting our waterways and ending up in nature.
‘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 container, one manual baler donated by the PepsiCo Foundation, and starting capital.
The journey from ‘Waste to Cash’ begins in Aling Tindera’s neighborhood, where residual plastic has little to no value and ends up contaminating nature. In response to this challenge, the Aling Tindera container will serve as an aggregation hub where any member of the community may sell post-consumer plastic by the kilogram. Simple bystanders become empowered not only to depollute their environment, but make extra income.
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.
In serving businesses who desire to have a real, sustainable impact on ending plastic waste, PCEx commits to transparency to the public and its clients. Together with SGV & Co.’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services practice, PCEx will perform compliance audits for both plastic footprint as well as the entire value chain of 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.
PCEx is a Philippine-based non-profit organization that partners with sustainability-conscious businesses around the globe to responsibly offset their plastic footprint, and reduce the flow of plastic waste into our landfills and oceans.
It has built a wide ecosystem of collaborators that recover, process and recycle plastic waste and continuously seeks out the most environmentally and sound solutions to plastic waste reduction. PCEx supports environmental protection with programs that improve livelihoods and scale up social impact.