One person’s trash can be another person’s meal for some villagers in the Philippines with a rice-for-plastics programme launched to help the environment and feed the public.
Since June, officials from Bayanan village on the outskirts of Manila started exchanging a kilogram of rice for every two kilos of plastic waste they can accumulate. The waste collected are then given to the national government for proper disposal or recycling.
Veronica Dolorico, 49, is among the avid participants and calls herself the “Environmental mumshie”, a Filipino slang for mother or auntie.
A mother of four and wife of a rickshaw driver, she roams around her neighbourhood collecting trash she either picks up on the road or from her neighbours.
A kilo of rice costs around 30-40 pesos (0.70 USD), which is costly for people living under the poverty line with a monthly consumption of $241.
“This is a big help for us to have one kilo of rice for the day,” she says after delivering her monthly haul to the village officials.
Village chief Andor San Pedro says for the month of August, over 213 kilograms of sachets, bottles and plastic bags have been collected, with more families getting interested in the programme.
While the exchange programme might not help in reducing plastic consumption, it still teaches people to properly dispose their waste, he says.
The Philippines is among the world’s top marine plastic polluters, according to a 2015 report of the environmental group Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Centre for Business and Environment.
The Philippines’ law on solid waste is poorly enforced and the country doesn’t regulate packaging manufacturing. (REUTERS)
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