Closing the loop and making the Philippines sustainable one community at a time.
There’s a longstanding rift between being sustainable and development. At one point or another, we’d have to admit that development is inevitable, and it is a good thing for the economy. Choosing to make progress sustainable, on the other hand, is a choice.
It’s something we decide on every day. For example, do we choose to buy water in a plastic bottle or instead, find a way to drink water more sustainably? For instance, think about how many times you order coffee to go in a week? If you brought your reusable coffee container, imagine how many disposable single-use plastic cups (and lids) you’re saving from the dumps!
Little decisions that lead to small changes in habits still create an impact, especially when compounded over a more extended time. If at least one person decides to use a reusable water bottle instead of buying single-use plastic bottles and using takeaway cups each day—how much of the earth can we save?
“We believe that sustainability, tourism, and business can go hand-in-hand when all parties from the private sector like Coca-Cola, us – your local public servants, and equally-passionate organizations and individuals work together toward a common vision. We all want to live in a World Without Waste, and I hope that that is a shared end goal that we can all help contribute towards reaching,” Mayor Cecilia Rusillon of the municipality of General Luna said during the commitment wall signing that took place during the opening ceremony of the 25th Annual Siargao Cloud 9 Surfing Cup.
Under the World Without Waste vision, Coca-Cola aims to collect and recycle every single bottle or can they sell by 2030. They also aim to make packaging 100% recycle so that none of these ends up in landfills or oceans.
It seems still a long way to go knowing that it’s going to be around ten years from now, but it doesn’t mean we can’t do something about it. As individuals, we can always have a say over our own decisions and help influence others towards a more sustainable and responsible way of living.
“We know that progress is a good thing and we want Pacifico to be progressive too like General Luna, but it has to be under control,” says Wemar Bonono founder of the Sun Crew that hails from Pacifico, Siargao’s northern surf playground.
The Sun Crew was recently awarded the Coke Barkada Award for demonstrating the collective volunteerism and living the value of positive action for positive change. The Sun Crew has grown to be iconic game-changers in Pacific and known to be amongst the movers towards sustainability in and around Siargao Island.
Part of their mission is helping the local kids of their community earn their education while learning how to surf and develop sustainable practices like regular coastal cleanups and waste segregation, to name a few.
“Like every municipality, we want to progress but not at a cost to the environment and the community” adds Sun Crew’s Jerome Cubillan. Development should never come at a cost as high as the future of the next generations. As early as today, we all need to do our part in ensuring the world doesn’t come to a grim and polluted end as our nightmares show us. It’s time to stop pointing fingers and start becoming the solutions to a problem that we’re all part of, one way or another.
