3M supports Plastic Flamingo waste management project in PH
3M, in its commitment to further advance sustainability and efficiency, is responding to the demand to tackle and reduce plastic pollution while optimizing social impact. It aims to enable progress in sustainability, society and education in the Philippines.
“Sustainability is at the heart of 3M. It drives our innovations and inspires us to collaborate with various stakeholders, including nonprofits and communities, to solve global problems and improve everyday life,” says Reggie Pulumbarit, country leader of 3M Philippines Inc. and director of 3M’s Philippine Global Service Center.
Today, ocean-bound plastic waste pollution continues to pose environmental, economic and social problems in the Philippines, which is the world’s third-biggest contributor to plastic pollution in the ocean.
It is because of this crisis as well as key priorities in sustainability, society and education that 3M pledges its support to the Plastic Flamingo (PLAF) plastic waste management project in the Philippines.
PLAF is a French social enterprise, launched in 2019 with a pilot project in the Philippines. Through its plastic waste management project, it aims to support the employment of junk shops and collection members from the local community while continuing to hire mostly women personnel for its warehouse and recycling facility.
Furthermore, the collected plastic will be transformed into eco-planks that will be used to construct emergency shelter kits for Filipinos displaced by natural disasters.
Amounting to P1,2 million, the grant to PLAF is provided by 3Mgives, 3M’s global social investment arm, to the Philippine Business for Social Progress, the business-led social development organization committed to poverty reduction.
The grant will provide support for efforts to increase the collection and recycling of plastic, reduce the plastic waste going to and polluting oceans, and improve income from waste-picking as a livelihood.