WITH thousands upon thousands of new Covid-19 cases daily, it’s not easy to think of anything else other than personal survival. But as we struggle to heal our bodies and our minds, our planet—our only home—is also struggling to stay alive.
The world celebrated the 51st Earth Day last Thursday with the theme, “Restore the Earth.” According to EARTHDAY.ORG, the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, this year’s theme focuses on natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking to restore the world’s ecosystems.
“In this way, the theme rejects the notion that mitigation or adaptation are the only ways to address climate change. It is up to each and every one of us to restore our Earth, not just because we care about the natural world, but because we live on it. We all need a healthy Earth to support our jobs, livelihoods, health and survival, and happiness. A healthy planet is not an option—it is a necessity,” EARTHDAY.ORG said on its web site.
Environmental degradation is not a new problem. It has been around for years, but now exacerbated by the weight of this pandemic. With the pandemic changing the way we live, work, learn, and shop, there has been a rise in the amount of packaging wastes across the globe over the past year, especially cardboard boxes and different types of single-use plastics. This is aside from the ever-growing pile of medical waste like face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE), also mostly made of plastic materials.
In an article published on Science News for Students, environmental researcher Joana Prata from the University of Aveiro in Portugal said the world now uses around 129 billion face masks and 65 billion gloves every month. A 2017 study titled “Production, Use, and Fate of All Plastics Ever Made,” meanwhile, stated that only 9 percent of plastic ever made has been recycled, around 12 percent has been incinerated, and the remaining 79 percent are still in landfills or in nature.
These are the challenges that we face today and will continue to face in the future. Prata said, however, that the biggest challenge of all “will be reversing the new habits”—referring to increased use of single-use plastics.
Different efforts
AS this year’s Earth Day theme emphasizes, everyone has a part in restoring the Earth—and this starts in our homes. As recycling remains a huge challenge the world over, reducing consumption is the most logical way to significantly bring down the amount of trash stuck in landfills or in nature.
If you have a Facebook account, you can find a lot of pages promoting sustainable living, just by keying in the phrase “zero waste” or the word “recycling” on the search bar. There are pages devoted to sharing tips about living sustainably, including consumption reduction; there are those specially designed for bartering things you no longer use; there are those devoted to recycling and upcycling. Figure out what you want, and there’s surely a community that you would enjoy being a part of.
I myself am a member of some of these groups, as I am an avid recycler. It was in one of these groups that I discovered Green Haven Scrap Materials Trading, a Valenzuela-based household solid waste collector that is “committed to help communities to handle and sort their household solid waste for proper disposal.”
I love Green Haven for accepting almost anything and everything: assorted paper products, tin cans, various plastic packaging, glass bottles, broken furniture, busted or obsolete electronics, and even those bubble plastic wraps from your online shopping sprees. They also accept used beverage cartons (UBCs), more popularly known by the brand name Tetra Pak (yes, that is not a generic name for cardboard juice or milk cartons, but the name of a company that produces various beverage packaging). I was ecstatic—and I am not exaggerating here—when I found out that they accepted these types of packaging, as I have not found a single junk shop or recycler in our area that did.
UBC recycling was particularly interesting for me, given the difficulty in recycling this particular packaging. While it is mostly made of paper, it also has a polymer or plastic layer and some aluminum components. To be properly recycled, the paper component—which makes up around 75 percent of each UBC—has to be separated from the polymer-aluminum (PolyAl) components.
One of Tetra Pak Philippines’ recycling partners, Bulacan-based Rural Industrial Corp., turns the paper component of UBCs into kraft paper, while the PolyAl components are transformed into what is called PolyAl Pro boards, which have various construction applications. One of its best applications, according to a friendly Green Haven collector, is as roofing for chicken coops—because, unlike the usual G.I. sheets, PolyAl boards don’t produce as much noise (which scares and stresses chickens) when it rains.
Recycling UBCs is part of Tetra Pak Philippines’ sustainability efforts. Tetra Pak Philippines Sustainability Manager Catherine Chua says these recycling programs not only helps protect the environment, but also creates opportunities for entrepreneurs.
“And partnership for us means also investing in the infrastructure and system to help connect the dots, and ensuring that the UBCs are collected and brought to our recycler. We also help our partners expand market opportunities for their recycled products,” she said.
She related that Tetra Pak viewed sustainability from a packaging perspective, at source, and not just from the end-of-life perspective, after the contents have been emptied from the UBCs: “It’s equally important to know what goes into the pack, and if the raw materials are sourced responsibly.”
Tetra Pak has a partnership with the Forest Stewardship Council, which ensures that the paperboards going into each pack come from responsibly managed forests. Its polyethylene and aluminum materials are also responsibly sourced.
End-to-end sustainability efforts
ANOTHER company that views sustainability from one end of its operations to the other is Maynilad, the company I work for. According to Quality, Environment, Safety, and Health Division Head Roel Espiritu, as a water service provider, it is important for the company to protect the environment, as this is the only way Maynilad will continue to be able to operate.
“We pay particular attention to climate change, as the first thing altered by climate change is the hydrological cycle. We can either have too much water resulting in floods and impacting the quality of raw water, or too little rainfall affecting water supply,” he related.
Water from the source, in our case Angat Dam and Laguna Lake, are properly treated in our plants to become potable. This is then distributed to our customers through our extensive pipe network. The water that our customers use end up becoming wastewater, which we also treat in our water reclamation facilities so that it will be safe to be discharged back to receiving bodies of water.
“Our water must be safe. The quality of water from source to tap and back to the receiving bodies of water must comply with regulatory standards. The manner by which we extract, treat, distribute, and treat wastewater must take into account the impact on the environment, as well as to the health and safety of communities, customers, and employees,” Espiritu said.
Aside from these activities, which form part of the company’s core operations, Environment Management Head John Emmanuel Martinez said Maynilad also does greenhouse gas accounting and energy management—all guided by international standards—to measure our environmental footpint.
“Maynilad aims to be the established leader in environmental best practices in the water industry. We stay focused on projects, programs, activities, and services that not only bring value to the business, but also to the different communities we serve. We have integrated sustainability in our operations by optimizing and securing our resources, increasing operational efficiency, improving quality of services, and maintaining the health and safety of our employees as well as the communities we operate in,” he added.
Our sustainability activities are aligned with the sustainability framework of our parent firm Metro Pacific Investments Corp. According to MPIC Chief Financial Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer Chaye Cabal-Revilla, members of the MPIC family view the sustainability agenda as a guide in running their businesses.
“Our sustainability agenda serves as our North Star in futureproofing ourselves and in making sure we allow the next generation not only to survive but thrive. This goes with the in-depth realization that all our decisions carry a pervasive impact and our business success is highly interlinked to us taking care of all our internal and external stakeholders, including the environment, or nature, from which all of us derive our needs and resources from,” she said.
“Everyone from our MPIC Group has embraced sustainability—from our board, our leaders, and the rest of our organization. We have formalized our sustainability charter and incorporated sustainability in our board committee—now called the Sustainability and Governance Committee. Our MPIC board has approved our enhanced MPIC Group Sustainability Framework and the creation of our MPIC Group Sustainability Council where we all align our (environmental, social, and corporate governance) policies, sustainability initiatives, and adhere to international sustainability standards and disclosures,” she added.
While these are tangible individual and corporate efforts to “restore the Earth” and preserve it for the next generation, we should continue doing our part, however small you think it is, in keeping our planet alive for years and years to come. Changing deeply entrenched behaviors can be very difficult, but not impossible. You just have to have the willingness to change and adapt new, more environmentally responsible habits. Then we will no longer need Earth Day to remind us of the damage we’ve caused our planet; we can just use that day to celebrate the good that we’ve done to restore it.
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier organization for PR professionals around the world. Abigail L. Ho-Torres is AVP and Head of Advocacy and Marketing of Maynilad Water Services Inc. She spent more than a decade as a business journalist before making the leap to the corporate world.
We are devoting a special column each month to answer our readers’ questions about public relations. Please send your questions or comments to askipraphil@gmail.com.