Plastic has a way of coming back. Nestlé Philippines wants to make sure it returns to the recycling loop—not the ocean.
At the Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park, the company marked the fifth year of its coastal cleanup drive, bringing employees and their families together to collect waste while making a larger point: fighting plastic pollution takes more than picking up what washes ashore.
For Joey Uy, senior vice president and head of corporate affairs at Nestlé Philippines, the annual cleanup is less about the trash collected than the responsibility it represents.
“Today is our fifth year of coastal cleanup and I think this is a real milestone,” Uy said, stressing that the activity should be more than a public-relations exercise. It is, he said, a reminder of the company’s environmental commitments and the need for sustained participation from businesses, communities and individuals.
The cleanup forms part of Nestlé’s broader Plastic Recovery and Recycling Program, under which the company collects an amount of plastic waste equivalent to the packaging it puts into the market.
But recovery is only one piece of the puzzle. Nestlé is also working to reduce its use of virgin plastic through packaging optimization while supporting the development of recycling infrastructure.
That infrastructure is critical to the circular-economy equation. Plastic collected from communities and coastlines still has to be sorted, processed and recycled before it can become part of a new production cycle.
“The problem with plastic is the management,” Uy said, pointing to the need for systems that keep waste from ending up in landfills, rivers and oceans.
Nestlé also participates in the National Plastic Action Plan’s technical working group, contributing to broader efforts to advance circularity.
For the company, the message from the cleanup extends beyond the shoreline. Uy urged employees and their families to practice proper waste segregation and responsible consumption, underscoring the role individuals can play alongside businesses and government.
A cleanup can remove yesterday’s plastic. The harder job is making sure tomorrow’s does not end up in the same place.
