Hedcor, one of AboitizPower’s Cleanergy companies, celebrates the second year of its #NoToSingleUsePlastics campaign.
The campaign, which began two years ago, promotes the decreased use of single-use plastics within company premises and events. Hedcor initially kept its environmental campaign simple and focused by centering on the ban of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles through the #NoPETSAllowed campaign.
“The use of single use plastic specifically PET bottles poses a danger to our health and the environment. Based on studies, the Philippines is generating about 45.2 million pieces of PET bottled per day and in one way or another we were once contributing to that number. This is why we decided to focus on this first,” Hedcor’s sustainability officer Cranep Udan explains.
To help team members embrace the campaign, Hedcor gave away tumblers to ensure that PET bottles were eliminated in its premises and company activities.
With the campaign’s success and team members’ conscious commitment to avoiding PET bottles, Hedcor decided to expand the campaign by discouraging the use of all single-use plastics within the company’s premises.
From #NoPETSallowed to #NoToSingleUsePlastics, Hedcor discouraged the use of single-use plastics such as styro, juice packs, straw, plastic cups, plastic cutlery (forks, knives and spoons) and plastic food keepers in all company activities, celebrations, and events such as meetings, tree planting, among others.
Hedcor’s Sustainability team has since spearheaded activities in support of this advocacy such as promoting the use of katcha bags instead of plastic bags, introducing substitutes to single-use packaging, and implementing segregation and recycling within company premises.
As a pioneering pillar of AboitizPower’s Cleanergy brand, Hedcor is on a constant journey to look for ways to minimize impact on the environment.
“If we do not minimize the use of single-use plastics, we will not have enough space to contain wastes. This, coupled with improper disposal, can lead to health problems,” Udan points out.
“As part of Hedcor’s commitment to protect the environment, we will continue to promote the minimized use of single use plastics. All these for better health and a better earth,” she adds.
Hedcor also extends this campaign to its partner communities. This is done through holding Information and Education campaigns on proper waste segregation and organizing eco-market days to encourage households to segregate, recycle, and dispose of their waste properly. In return, residents get to earn extra income from selling their recyclable wastes.
Since Hedcor began the waste segregation and eco-market campaign in 2010, the group has collected 2.1 million kilograms of waste among all of the eco-market days it has organized across the country.
Hedcor is the run-of-river hydropower arm of AboitizPower which generates 280 MW of Cleanergy through its 22 hydropower facilities across the country.
