PHILIPPINES: Filipino businessmen move away from plastic packaging and use organic materials to make bags and baskets for their products
- 00:00:20
- ITN Source
PHILIPPINES: Filipino businessmen move away from plastic packaging and use organic materials to make bags and baskets for their products
Around 100 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year worldwide, according to Greenpeace and in many countries like the Philippines, rubbish and waste end piled up in dumps and end up clogging drainage pipes. This prompted some businesses to go green, giving away bio-degradable bags and baskets instead of plastic ones. Rebecca Carandang offers an alternative to plastic with bags made of pandan leaves, which she sells for 35 pesos (slightly less than one U.S. dollar) a piece in a Manila market. "Baskets are better because we can use them over and over. It stays sturdy as long as there are no holes," Carandang said. In the Philippines, plastic makes up 15 percent of the 6,400 tonnes of solid waste accumulated each day. With more corporations understanding the need to go green, some supermarket chains have started weaning shoppers away from plastic, encouraging them to use canvas bags instead. Pizza parlor owner Mark Nepomuceno has done away with chemically-bleached boxes and now uses flat baskets made of bamboo for take-out orders. "We give them an additional value-added for the pizza in a packaging that they can reuse," Nepomuceno said. He also hopes his patronage of native baskets can generate employment for traditional craftsmen struggling against a dying industry. Avelina Macatulad, 68, has been weaving baskets for decades. "I'm saddened that no one will inherit this livelihood, but the new generation has no desire for it," Macatulad said. She hopes the new generation will understand the value of one reusable bamboo basket against hundreds of discarded plastic bags.
ITN Source | October 15, 2007
