Stores providing product refills should not a brand new concept. In the final 5 years or so, a lot of shops in addition to manufacturers providing product refills have cropped up in Metro Manila and different elements of the Philippines to assist curb the worsening plastic air pollution downside.
It is precisely the rationale why Greenpeace Philippines, incubator lab Impact Hub, and the native authorities of San Juan City have come collectively for Kuha sa Tingi (KST), an initiative that permits sari-sari shops to supply product refills of assorted each day necessities in tingi portions.
“KST is a project that establishes refilling stations in communities,” Marian Ledesma, Zero Waste campaigner of Greenpeace Philippines and KST venture lead tells GMA News Online in a Zoom interview.
“We decided to have them hosted in sari-sari stores in order to reduce sachet use, as well as plastic pollution.”
Philippines has been referred to as amongst the highest 5 nations producing half of the world’s plastic waste, with our rivers emitting probably the most variety of plastic into the ocean.
With microplastics already present in salt, in addition to in human blood, fixing the plastic downside has by no means been extra pressing.
KST goals to do exactly that two methods: It makes sachet purchases pointless by permitting small quantity refills, and it entails the federal government — or at the least an area authorities unit.
“It’s really important that we have a counterpart in government because while people’s personal choices will have an impact, corporate action and government efforts are more significant in terms of impact and reach. That’s what makes them essential if we want to tackle plastic pollution,” Ledesma continues.
KST is at the moment in its pilot program. It started in November with 10 sari-sari shops providing the refilling scheme throughout the town of San Juan.
Greenpeace laid down the groundwork earlier than the pandemic, reaching out to varied completely different cities with extremely urbanized areas to pitch the venture. San Juan was the very first to agree.
“We were thinking, this project is really to rethink the small-volume retail model in sari-sari stores and community shops, so it shifts away from pre-packaged goods and sachets,” Ledesma stated. “It’s not just about plastic waste but also reducing impacts of plastic production and plastic pollution in general.”
In deciding on the collaborating shops, Ledesma stated “It was important that [the stores] have enough foot traffic for them to be viable, and at the same time, their proximity to residential areas.”
Four merchandise are at the moment accessible for refilling at a minimal amount of 30 mL, which is equal to 1 sachet: Dishwashing liquid retails at P2.50, laundry detergent is at P4.54, material conditioner is at P4.77 and a 2-in-1 bodywash at P14.60.
Courtesy: Greenpeace Philippines
According to Ledesma, retailer homeowners have reported the dishwashing liquid to be the pilot’s best-seller. It is smart: “That’s the one people use every day, at every meal so it’s really utilized.”
The 2-in-1 bodywash in the meantime wants a rethinking — or at the least, a evaluation of pricing. “It is a bit higher than most. It’s as P14.60, by far the most expensive of the four products,” Ledesma stated, including “we have to figure out if it makes more sense just to have shampoo, or just have soap, or to tweak the product to make it cheaper.”
KST sources the merchandise from Chemlux, an area firm that gives just about the identical merchandise to varied resorts and meals chains “so we know it’s good quality product and they can manage orders and work with us on pricing because pricing is an important factor.”
Meanwhile, Greenpeace tapped Impact Hub, an incubator lab that does “a lot of things, mostly in innovation or creating new business models or designing projects. One of the areas of their work is Sustainability,” Ledesma says, including Impact Hub helped Nutriasia with their refilling efforts in BGC and QC.
The concept of KST is much like most refilling shops: Customers include their empty containers and fill it up in keeping with nevertheless a lot they want. This eliminates the necessity for sachet and the next plastic waste.
While it occurs that clients overlook to carry their containers, these sari-sari shops are close to residential areas, making it straightforward for them retrieve their containers from house. “Some sari-sari stores are also resourceful so they collect and clear containers from neighbors and offer to costumers that don’t have their own bottles,” Ledesma shared. “For the most part however, the consumer already has their container.”
KST might be in operation till April after which Greenpeace, Impact Hub, and San Juan will return to the drawing room to evaluate, tweak, and recalibrate.
“The pilot sort of doubles as a way for us to adjust the model,” Ledesma says. “ImpactHub has already expressed interest in continuing the project but we have to figure out how to make it doable for scaling.”
Among the challenges they’re seeing is logistics in addition to reverse logistics. Apart from making certain scalable supply of merchandise to sari-sari shops, there may be additionally the problem of returning the massive containers to the suppliers to get them refilled.
There can be the problem of determining the wants of every group “because every area and every community have different needs. So where we expand and replicate will also go through sort of an assessment process similar to what we did in San Juan.”
And lastly, model recognition. “Understandably, may concerns yung store owners about the branding, where the products come from, if it’s effective, if it’s good. So we really had a thorough onboarding. We introduced the them to the supplier, gave them samples so they can see for themselves how it works. We had a barangay roadshow to engage the communities so they can also test the products.”
Whatever learnings and insights Greenpeace will get from KST, they plan on sharing with native governments and legislators “to see if they can make policies that will help main stream refill and ruse. They can have this model as well as other projects like this as reference.”
She provides, “If would be great if multinational FMG companies could provide their goods for refilling — they don’t necessary need to be part of KST. We will engage them when the model has been proven and tested after the pilot.”
While the thought is to eradicate sachets, single-use plastic, and plastic air pollution all collectively — together with the unfavorable environmental, well being, and social impacts that include plastic manufacturing — there may be one other factor KST goals to do: Restore our tingi tradition again to its sustainable roots.
“Before sachets, our tingi culture, our small volume retail was characterized by sustainable practices that used native and reusable materials,” Ledesma stated.
“Tingi used to be about bringing your garapon or lagayan to the store and having it refilled. So that’s why we wanted to use KST to reclaim that image and reimagine the idea to become zero-waste once more.” — GMA Integrated News
