The noontime show Eat Bulaga! has become part of our lives since 1979. It continuously serves the hottest mix of games and contests that bring laughter to its Pinoy audience. But more than just a variety show, Eat Bulaga! promotes recycling of plastic bottles in communities.
Barangay residents are required to bring plastic bottles to have a chance to win cash prizes in the segment Juan for All, All for Juan: Bayanihan of d’ Pipol. Schools, organizations, and companies are also free to join the project and donate their own collection of plastic bottles.
Instead of ending up in sewers and landfills, these plastic bottles are turned into school armchairs which would be given to selected schools in the country. Mostly from remote areas, schools in need of new or better desk chairs benefit from it.
This initiative has been dubbed as Plastic ni Juan Project.
Launched in 2010, the project has garnered about 20 million plastics. Consequently, more than 7,000 chairs have been donated to hundreds of public schools around the country.
To further expand the campaign of reducing plastic waste, Eat Bulaga! has recently launched the Istraw ni Juan project. The noontime show also provides washable and reusable metal straws and a cleaning brush in exchange for plastic bottles.
During the launch of Istraw ni Juan last August 2018, the hosts demonstrated how to use and clean the metal straws. In effect, communities are encouraged to use reusable metal straws to lessen plastic waste. Due to its influence in all social classes, Eat Bulaga! has successfully increased awareness on the importance of recycling.
The noontime show earned praise in the social media realm and was recognized for presenting a feasible solution to our trash problem.
These initiatives are significantly helpful in combating the unfortunate reality that the Philippines is the world’s third largest contributor to ocean plastic, next to China and Indonesia, according to a 2015 study in the journal Science. Our country generated about 40,087 tons of garbage daily in 2012, according to the National Solid Waste Management Commission.
Globally, plastic pollution has received worldwide attention as increasing research reveals the danger it poses to life forms across the food web.
Unfortunately, the World Bank estimated that solid waste produced by Philippine cities will go up by 165 percent in 2025.
Unless our trash problem is addressed, generated wastes will lead to water contamination, flooding, and pollution.
Because of the threats caused by plastic waste, environmental initiatives from the private sector and the media are very much welcomed. And Eat Bulaga! has brought something feasible on the table.
If other barangays and organizations will cooperate in the initiative of the longest noontime variety show on Philippine television, we are reducing wastes that will likely end up in our sewers and landfills. And alas, more durable armchairs will be made and distributed to other public schools nationwide.
Let’s hit two birds with one stone.