Small retail stores to recycle plastic
PCEx incentivizes women-owned sari-sari stores to become collection points for post-consumer plastic waste
The Plastic Credit Exchange (PCEx), 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.
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 of the city’s 897 barangays.
Under the Aling Tindera program, PCEx incentivizes women-owned 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.
Added income for SME
Among the 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.
Community effort needed
“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,” PepsiCo corporate affairs head for the Philippines and Asia Anne Marie Corominas emphasized.