Plastic used to be regarded as a world miracle. After all, it was really created to help mankind to eliminate the need to ransack the Earth in pursuit of substances which are constantly growing scarcer as well as saving plants and animals. Indeed, plastics have transformed many lives for the better. They’ve eased travel into space and revolutionized medicine. They lighten every car and jumbo jet today. In the form of clingy, light-as-air wraps, they extend the life of fresh food. In airbags, incubators, helmets, or simply by delivering clean drinking water to poor people in disposable bottles, plastics save lives daily.
With improper disposal over the years, plastics have encountered a problem—tons of improperly discarded plastic waste in varying sizes from large containers, fishing nets, to microscopic plastic pellets or even particles—discarded improperly every year, everywhere, polluting lands and bodies of water.
Global company Mondelez Philippines sees it is time to create alternative uses for plastic waste. Heeding the call to save Mother Earth, Mondelez Philippines with partner First Balfour, decided to make use of plastic waste by constructing play areas made of ecobricks—or plastic 1.5 or 1.75-liter bottles which are stuffed with plastic packaging waste.
The play areas will be installed in the adopted Joy Schools of Mondelez Philippines in support of the company’s global 2025 commitment to make all packaging recyclable, provide recycling information and support public-private partnerships to help reduce waste and improve recycling.
Recycled Plastic Play Areas
The First Balfour-designed ecobricks slide was unveiled at Camp Claudio Elementary School in Paranaque City on August 2 in the presence of school officials, the Paranaque City office and partner the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP). The ecobricks have been collected by the school community itself and Mondelez Philippines employees. In fact, some of the plastic bottles bear the names of the students or the sections of the students who filled them.
According to Mondelez Philippines Country Director Ashish Pisharodi, a total of 990 kilos of ecobricks have been collected from January to March 2019, and transformed into the three play areas.
He said two more play areas shall be unveiled within the month of August, at the Rogelio Gatchalian Elementary School in Paranaque City and Holy Spirit Elementary School in Quezon City.
“Through the ecobricks project, the students of the Joy Schools can learn about the importance of environmental protection, recycling and have more opportunities to be active while enjoying their new play areas,” Pisharodi said during the interview after the launch.
Snacking Made Right
Mondelez Philippines aims to empower people to snack right as well as help minimize plastic waste. It believes that one of the approaches to help address the issue of plastic waste is to make it easier for consumers to recycle packaging and support industry coalitions to improve recycling rates.
The Joy Schools, Mondelez Philippines’s signature community program across Southeast Asia, has included recycling to help empower students to care for the planet’s well-being.
The Joy Schools currently provides a daily nine-month feeding for 300 undernourished students in the country to help improve their nutrition and increase energy for school.
“We are excited about the launch of the Joy Schools Plastic Play Areas project. Over the past years we have done similar projects to help promote the importance of recycling, including sharing of recycled plastic chairs with schools through our brand, Tang” Pisharodi shared.
“In our manufacturing plant in Paranaque, we also have several initiatives in place to ensure we reduce our waste and carbon emissions, and our use of energy and water. As of 2019, 98% of the total waste from our operations are either recycled or recyclable.”
“This is only the start for us as we move towards our global goal of 100% recyclable packaging by 2025,” he concluded.
Image credits: Roy Domingo