Turning an environmental initiative into something engaging and fun was achieved through play areas made from recycled plastic waste.
Anchored on its “Snacking Made Right” goal, Mondelez Philippines, the company behind some of the famous snack brands, created and turned over recycled plastic areas made from eco-bricks.
“Our recycled plastic play areas, which are made of eco-bricks, are one of the ways we bring to life our sustainable snacking goal. The play areas create alternative uses for packaging material, which would otherwise have been waste,” says Mondelez Philippines country director Ashish Pisharodi.
Pisharodi continues, “At the same time, they help enable students to play more and be active. In this way we can reduce our environmental impact, and at the same time ensure that the students and our community become part of the cause of recycling as well.”
In January 2019, Mondelez Philippines and its partners First Balfour, Inc. and Philippine Business for Social Progress, started collecting eco-bricks. These are plastic bottles filled with shredded plastic. Each brick must weigh at least one kilo to ensure its strength for use as a building material.
Employees of the company, its partners, and the students and communities of the adopted Joy Schools pitched in to collect eco-bricks. At the end of March, 990 eco-bricks were collected, which equated to 990 kilos of plastic packaging which have been recycled and put to good use.
The eco-bricks were used as construction material to create the play areas. A total of three Joy Schools received the recycled play areas—these are Camp Claudio Elementary and Rogelio Gatchalian Elementary in Parañaque City, and Holy Spirit Elementary in Quezon City.
“The aim of this project is to encourage our adopted students and communities to contribute to post-consumer waste management,” adds Pisharodi.
“In our manufacturing plant in Parañaque, 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 percent of the total waste from our operations are either recycled or recyclable.”
The company said it has switched to using 100 percent renewable energy through a partnership to utilize geothermal energy for its plant and office. It also has its own materials recovery facility inside its plant.
“This is only the start for us as we move towards our global goal of 100 percent recyclable packaging by 2025,” enthuses Pisharodi. “We have also partnered with the Philippine Alliance on Recycling and Materials Sustainability. Through this program, the alliance of private companies has created a plastic recycling facility in Parañaque in partnership with the local city government. This facility will provide recycled plastic materials shaped into building bricks to the schools, for their facilities improvement.”