Changemakers in a World Overflowing with Plastic

Our recently formed partnerships with Plastic Bank Philippines and Liter of Light to augment our efforts at reducing waste and promoting sustainability at the operational level, while uplifting the lives of marginalized sectors in the country. These two organizations are aligned with Pilipinas Shell’s advocacies on social responsibility and environmental stewardship.

Plastic Bank Philippines

The Philippines is currently the third largest contributor of ocean plastic waste in the world, behind only China and Indonesia. In 2016, Plastic Bank, a global organization bent on stopping ocean plastic pollution, set up shop in the Philippines to incentivize local informal waste collectors for the plastic waste they collect.

Pilipinas Shell has been supporting the advocacy of Plastic Bank Philippines through the sales of both Shell Saltwater Supercars and the Shell Select Eco Tumblers.

For every purchase of a Shell Saltwater Supercar, a Php 2 donation goes to Plastic Bank Philippines to support their community-building efforts in Baseco.

Compound, an urban poor community which primarily subsists on informal waste collection. Through community building, Plastic Bank Philippines helps strengthen the relationships among the informal waste collectors, existing “junk shops,” and the local government to increase the waste collection and improve the living conditions of the local waste collectors. Ultimately, Plastic Bank Philippines hopes to transition these informal waste collectors from subsistence to cooperative enterprise.

In 2018, 514 retail stations nationwide offered the Saltwater Supercars, sales from which have generated over Php 1 million in donations. The initiative was also extended to benefit not just Baseco, Manila but other urban poor communities in Naga, Camarines Sur, and Cagayan de Oro, Misamis Oriental.

Pilipinas Shell has a long tradition of selling toy cars; however, this is the first time that the cars became an instrument for an advocacy. These supercars are teaching aids on energy innovation: they are powered when saltwater comes into contact with a metal plate stored with energy. The racetracks are made of sugarcane, rather than plastic.

Each Shell Select Eco Tumbler, on the other hand, is crafted from recycled plastics, thereby helping keep as much as two kilograms of plastic waste from ending up in the oceans. With the eco- tumblers, customers avoid buying single- use plastic bottles, thus coming closer to adopting a greener and more sustainable lifestyle.

Liter of Light

As part of protecting the environment through repurposing discarded plastic bottles for use in alternative sources of sustainable energy to off-the-grid communities, Pilipinas Shell forged a partnership with Liter of Light, a global movement that provides affordable and sustainable solar power to light up the homes of indigent communities.

The first phase of the partnership entailed transforming Shell retail stations in Metro Manila into recycling stations for PET bottles. Then, Liter of Light trained volunteers from Pilipinas Shell on how to transform the collected PET bottles into solar-powered light bulbs.