The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday said the 6 million dispatched ballots will be recycled and used in future elections, saying drying and curing will take too much time to reuse it for the 2025 midterm elections.
Comelec spokesperson lawyer Rex Laudiangco said new sheets of fresh ballot papers will be used because the poll body is pressed for time and must complete the printing by April 14 to 20.
He said the discarded election ballots will not be shredded because the old process of micro-shredding won’t work anymore.
“What we’ll do is melt all of the dispatched ballots using a solution for direct recycling,” Laudiangco said.
“The drying and curing process to recycle the unusable ballot papers will take time, and the poll body could no longer wait for it since its goal is to complete the printing of new ballot papers by January 21,” he added.
The poll body began the transfer of the affected ballot papers from the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City to their warehouse in Santa Rosa, Laguna.