The Philippines' Extended Producer Responsibility statute came into force in 2023 – the first in South-east Asia to impose penalties on companies over plastic waste.
The Philippines, with a population of 120 million, generates some 1.7 million metric tons of post-consumer plastic waste a year, according to the World Bank.The EPR law is intended to achieve “plastic neutrality” by forcing large businesses to reduce plastic pollution through product design and removing waste from the environment.
The law allows companies to outsource their obligations to “producer responsibility organisations”, many of which use a mechanism called plastic credits. She then sells them at a 25 per cent mark-up to US charity Friends of Hope, which works with PCX Solutions to process them. Among those purchasing credits is snack producer Mondelez, which has opted to jump directly to “offsetting” 100 per cent of its plastic footprint.