Baler, Aurora, has taken another step toward improving how it collects and recovers plastic waste, with new equipment expected to make it easier for the municipality to handle discarded PET bottles.
Coca-Cola Europacific Aboitiz Philippines (CCEAP), the bottling partner and official distributor of Coca-Cola products in the country, provided collection bins and a baling machine to the Municipality of Baler under its Tapon to Ipon program.
The equipment will support the collection, segregation, and recovery of clear PET plastic bottles across Baler’s 13 barangays. With the baling machine, collected bottles can be compressed at the municipality’s Materials Recovery Facility, helping improve the efficiency of recycling operations.
The initiative is supported by the Baler Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Office (MENRO) and the Sangguniang Bayan Committee on Environment.
For a community that welcomes both residents and visitors, keeping waste from reaching its beaches, streets, and waterways requires more than occasional cleanups. It also requires systems that make proper waste handling easier and more consistent.
Baler Mayor Rhett Ronan Angara said the partnership would help strengthen the municipality’s environmental efforts while encouraging residents and visitors to take part in keeping the community clean.
The latest effort builds on a relationship that goes back several years. In 2019, CCEAP provided Baler with a surf rake tractor to support regular and more efficient beach-cleaning operations.
CCEAP Vice President for Corporate & Regulatory Affairs Atty. Juan Lorenzo Tañada said the partnership has grown from that initial support to equipment that can strengthen PET collection and recovery.
The bigger opportunity is to keep that momentum going. Better waste management starts with the systems available in a community, but it also depends on people using them.
If a municipality and a company can work together to keep more plastic in the recycling stream and out of the environment, communities, businesses, schools, and groups of friends can take inspiration from Baler and find their own ways to pitch in.
