Parañaque, Metro Manila, 15 April 2023: To learn more about community-based waste management initiatives in the Philippines, the research team of ERIA's Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris (the Centre) visited the CORA Eco-Ikot Centre, an inclusive holistic recycling centre located in Parañaque, Metro Manila.
Communities Organised for Resource Allocation (CORA) – founded by Ms Antoinette Taus, award-winning Filipino-American actor, singer, and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Goodwill Ambassador – is committed to creating sustainable programmes to help solve global issues. Its projects revolve around volunteerism, community, and inclusivity, and are dedicated to empowering the most vulnerable community members, including women and youth.
CORA established the Eco-Ikot Centre in partnership with the Barangay San Isidro local government, the Parañaque City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO), Our Lady of Unity Parish, and the Homeowners’ Association of United Parañaque.
How the Eco-Ikot Centre Works
San Isidro community members are encouraged to bring their clean and dry plastic waste to the Eco-Ikot Centre, where the plastic is weighed to calculate points based on the amount collected. Members can then redeem the points for incentives such as rice, vegetables, e-cash, and other items. The collected plastic is then sent to partner companies such as Sentinel to be recycled into new products.
‘The Philippines contributes a lot to plastic waste generation. Around 164 million pieces of plastic sachets are disposed of daily in the country. Our centre wants to help address this issue,’ said Ms Antoinette Taus, who is also CORA's Executive Director.
This woman-led recycling initiative not only prevents solid waste from ending up in landfills but also strengthens the local government system, and provides tools to empower local community members, especially women. With support from USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (CCBO) programme, CORA recruited 10 women and trained them on solid waste management (SWM) and the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) so they could operate and run the recycling centre at San Isidro’s Materials Recovery Facility. The women operators are known as the Circular Centre Women Champions.
‘I believe in the power of women….On [the] one hand, women are vulnerable to the negative impacts of environmental issues. While on the other hand, they play a crucial role in our efforts to solve these issues,’ said Ms Taus, highlighting the strategic role women play in mainstreaming community-based waste management.
This underlying credence is starting to have an impact – one of the Women Champions is the mobiliser of a recycling initiative at her child’s school, and the school is now an Eco-Ikot Centre partner.
The Importance of Partnership for Community-based Initiatives
CORA's mission believes partnerships are instrumental in achieving a sustainable future where people and the planet work in harmony. As a result, the Eco-Ikot Centre has been cooperating with stakeholders including an international development agency, local governments, the private sector, and educational and religious institutions.
The partnership with Our Lady of Unity Parish is an interesting case. Located next to San Isidro’s materials recovery facility (MRF) where the Eco-Ikot Centre operates, the church actively supports its efforts to prevent solid waste from entering the landfills. An iron container has been placed at the church exit to collect used plastic waste from drink and food packaging brought by church members. The accumulated waste is then regularly moved to the MRF next door.
‘Community-based waste management is important since plastic pollution itself is a very complex issue and cannot be addressed by a single stakeholder,’ said Ms Ellen Putri Edita, Centre Research Associate and part of the visiting team.
Also read: No Trash Bins, Hotel Voucher: Some Good Practices in Waste Reduction and Management in Japan
Another interesting case is the partnership between the Eco-Ikot Centre and San Isidro MRF. The MRF ran a programme encouraging community members to collect plastic waste and create eco-bricks by filling used plastic bottles with plastic flakes.
The programme successfully gathered a large number of eco-bricks but, unfortunately, the supply was not absorbed. The Eco-Ikot Centre then showed its commitment to addressing plastic waste by mobilising its staff to remove the plastic flakes from each eco-brick and send the segregated waste to the recycling centre.
CORA is well aware of the significance of its work and the urgency of leveraging its impact, and the Eco-Ikot Centre is preparing to scale up its initiatives to achieve this.
‘Our goal is to promote public-private partnerships that involve local stakeholders. We strongly believe that more people helping each other is always better,’ said Ms Taus on future plans.
Also read: PETValue Philippines Pioneering Bottle-to-Bottle Recycling Facility in the Country
Knowledge Management Associate
Parañaque, Metro Manila, 15 April 2023: To learn more about community-based waste management initiatives in the Philippines, the research team of ERIA's Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris (the Centre) visited the CORA Eco-Ikot Centre, an inclusive holistic recycling centre located in Parañaque, Metro Manila.
Communities Organised for Resource Allocation (CORA) – founded by Ms Antoinette Taus, award-winning Filipino-American actor, singer, and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Goodwill Ambassador – is committed to creating sustainable programmes to help solve global issues. Its projects revolve around volunteerism, community, and inclusivity, and are dedicated to empowering the most vulnerable community members, including women and youth.
CORA established the Eco-Ikot Centre in partnership with the Barangay San Isidro local government, the Parañaque City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO), Our Lady of Unity Parish, and the Homeowners’ Association of United Parañaque.
How the Eco-Ikot Centre Works
San Isidro community members are encouraged to bring their clean and dry plastic waste to the Eco-Ikot Centre, where the plastic is weighed to calculate points based on the amount collected. Members can then redeem the points for incentives such as rice, vegetables, e-cash, and other items. The collected plastic is then sent to partner companies such as Sentinel to be recycled into new products.
‘The Philippines contributes a lot to plastic waste generation. Around 164 million pieces of plastic sachets are disposed of daily in the country. Our centre wants to help address this issue,’ said Ms Antoinette Taus, who is also CORA's Executive Director.
This woman-led recycling initiative not only prevents solid waste from ending up in landfills but also strengthens the local government system, and provides tools to empower local community members, especially women. With support from USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (CCBO) programme, CORA recruited 10 women and trained them on solid waste management (SWM) and the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) so they could operate and run the recycling centre at San Isidro’s Materials Recovery Facility. The women operators are known as the Circular Centre Women Champions.
‘I believe in the power of women….On [the] one hand, women are vulnerable to the negative impacts of environmental issues. While on the other hand, they play a crucial role in our efforts to solve these issues,’ said Ms Taus, highlighting the strategic role women play in mainstreaming community-based waste management.
This underlying credence is starting to have an impact – one of the Women Champions is the mobiliser of a recycling initiative at her child’s school, and the school is now an Eco-Ikot Centre partner.
The Importance of Partnership for Community-based Initiatives
CORA's mission believes partnerships are instrumental in achieving a sustainable future where people and the planet work in harmony. As a result, the Eco-Ikot Centre has been cooperating with stakeholders including an international development agency, local governments, the private sector, and educational and religious institutions.
The partnership with Our Lady of Unity Parish is an interesting case. Located next to San Isidro’s materials recovery facility (MRF) where the Eco-Ikot Centre operates, the church actively supports its efforts to prevent solid waste from entering the landfills. An iron container has been placed at the church exit to collect used plastic waste from drink and food packaging brought by church members. The accumulated waste is then regularly moved to the MRF next door.
‘Community-based waste management is important since plastic pollution itself is a very complex issue and cannot be addressed by a single stakeholder,’ said Ms Ellen Putri Edita, Centre Research Associate and part of the visiting team.
Also read: No Trash Bins, Hotel Voucher: Some Good Practices in Waste Reduction and Management in Japan
Another interesting case is the partnership between the Eco-Ikot Centre and San Isidro MRF. The MRF ran a programme encouraging community members to collect plastic waste and create eco-bricks by filling used plastic bottles with plastic flakes.
The programme successfully gathered a large number of eco-bricks but, unfortunately, the supply was not absorbed. The Eco-Ikot Centre then showed its commitment to addressing plastic waste by mobilising its staff to remove the plastic flakes from each eco-brick and send the segregated waste to the recycling centre.
CORA is well aware of the significance of its work and the urgency of leveraging its impact, and the Eco-Ikot Centre is preparing to scale up its initiatives to achieve this.
‘Our goal is to promote public-private partnerships that involve local stakeholders. We strongly believe that more people helping each other is always better,’ said Ms Taus on future plans.
Also read: PETValue Philippines Pioneering Bottle-to-Bottle Recycling Facility in the Country
Knowledge Management Associate
