Robinsons Las Piñas's Solid Waste Program in Partnership with USAID
Malls are venues with high volume customer foot traffic well-suited for raising public awareness on positive solid waste management habits and recycling hence Robinsons Malls partnered with USAID to develop a Solid Waste Management improvement and Mall Recovery Program for Residual Plastic Waste.
This Waste Recovery Program for Residual Plastic Waste project aimed to improve the solid waste management practices within malls and to reduce the amount of plastic waste being leaked to the environment through intervention in 2 Robinsons Malls: Las Pinas & General Trias in order to create a manual which will be used as a guide by other Robinsons Malls after 1 year of study & execution. The 3 objectives of the project are:
- To recover and divert residual plastics that leak to nature by setting up an efficient segregation system at the tenant level.
- To build sustainable offtake for recovered residual plastics (e.g. recycling); and
- To create a market for recycled products
The project promotes waste separation at source and plastic recycling in the malls. It also provides livelihood/income generation among community members. The project management team designed and implemented a holistic approach to plastic waste management in the malls by increasing waste separation at source, reducing the dependence on single-use plastics, increasing recycling rates and reducing the local government's landfill dependency. The overarching project goals are to improve SWM efficiency within large malls and to reduce the amount of plastic waste being leaked to the environment.
Through this SWM process, RLC is taking a bold step towards stewardship and care for the environment and the people in the communities where it operates. RLC recognizes its role in influencing the stakeholders to commit to a more sustainable way of living through responsible segregation of wastes.
Prior this practice, there was much more waste generated and plastics heading straight to the landfills due to the lack of segregation procedure and waste diversion strategies.
With this new process in place, the malls are able to recover and divert residual plastics that leak to nature by setting up an efficient segregation system at the tenant level and build a sustainable offtake for recovered residual plastics (eg recycling these plastics are converted into garbage bins, containers and chairs). This process was also able to create a market for the recycled products.
By doing so, it supports RLC's objective of creating shared success with its stakeholders in preserving the environment through utilization of its resources. Plastic wastes being generated and leaked to nature become less. This program results to lesser damaged to the environment while raising public awareness on positive solid waste management habits and recycling.
This is possible thru the shared effort of the mall management in cooperation with its tenants and mall goers.
From the 2020 tenant participation of 90%, RP Las Pinas recorded 100% participation for 2021.
Average Plastic Liners per month: P1,671.00 or total of P18,381.00 as of November 2021.
Moreover, Mall also enjoys min. P10,000 savings per month for the Hauling fee due to less garbage collection resulting to operating savings of the hauler as well.