A Workspace That Multiplies Itself: PP Philippines

The Philippines is one of the most polluted countries in the world: They are responsible for over 30% of all plastic that ends up in the ocean. But Butte Ivan Metz looked at all this trash one day and felt that there must be another way: He founded “Precious Plastic Philippines” (PPP), which makes durable construction materials for people all around the country, and sets up more workspaces to do the same.

Started in a backyard

At first glance, tackling plastic waste in the Philippines must seem futile: The Philippines is a country with 117,7 million people, and in 2017 they generated at least 2,7 million tons of plastic waste. That’s not a tremendous amount of waste per person (it’s around 43,5kg per person per year - compared to 147,7kg in Belgium), until you factor in that most of that waste has nowhere to be disposed of. There simply aren’t enough recycling facilities or reinforced regulations, so it ends up in the streets, rivers and ocean. 

But Butte Metz saw this problem and decided to not give in to pessimism. Instead, he launched a plastic recycling space in his backyard. It served as a simple setup to shred and extrude plastic waste into new products. It wasn’t long before the business took off. There is so much need for these solutions in the Philippines that Butte has kept busy and been able to grow and expand his services. Eight years later, PPP is going strong and has partners like the United Nations and World-Wide Fund for Nature.

Here’s a closer look at what makes PPP’s work so effective:

Collecting plastic waste

Due to the lack of collection facilities available to people in the country, PPP is a beacon. They are able to collect more than 1000kg of waste per month. That is an extraordinary amount! And they recycle as much as 12000kg in a single year.

“Plastic lumber”: the perfect product

PPP realized that the large quantities of waste coming through its doors needed to be converted into an equally large amount of product. This led to the creation of “plastic lumber:” strong beams of extruded plastic that won’t rot or get eaten by termites. Since the Philippines are in the tropics and get hit by extreme weather, durable construction materials are always in demand. These beams can be turned into anything from a table to a terrace deck. 

Due to the popularity of the beams, PPP took the designs from the Precious Plastic community and adapted them so other locals could afford to make beams of their own. They started selling “starter kits” that come with all the machinery needed to produce the plastic lumber. 

And sure enough, this approach is working: So far, PPP has sold over 300 starter kits, each having the capacity to process 150kg of plastic a day. This is allowing local people to take charge of their own plastic waste, build (or rebuild) their communities in an affordable way, and even generate income.

Multiplied impact: establishing more recycling centers, working with big partners

Building on the success of starter kits, and the obvious demand for recycling solutions in the country, PPP has worked to create more than 20 grassroots plastic-recycling workshops following the Precious Plastic model. They have set up workspaces in Manila, Caloocan City and Tadian City, among others. In many of these places, hundreds of kilos of waste is being recycled and used to make valuable products.

PPP has also become somewhat of a hub for anyone who wants to get into/improve plastic recycling in the Philippines: they sell the machines, teach how to properly separate the types of plastic, offer advice in case of questions, etc. Not bad for one workspace started in a backyard!

Finally, there’s the partnerships: PPP’s hard work and dedication has earned them the attention of big organizations like the WWF or the UN Development Programme. Together they bring machines and cleanups to places that need it the most. 

Support Precious Plastic

PPP is one of the longest-standing members of the global Precious Plastic community. They have built their business and impact from the ground up, experiencing first-hand the improvement that came along with Version 2, Version 3, and Version 4 of the organisation. Which is why they are actively supporting the launch of “Precious Plastic Version 5”: 

“Our entire operation is based on the Precious Plastic business model. It’s provided my daily living for eight years now. Currently, we employ five people directly, and many more are employed across the Philippines in workspaces we’ve built.” - Butte Ivan Metz

If you aren’t familiar, Precious Plastic equips over 1200 local groups all over the world with the know-how to tackle plastic recycling on a small scale. We continuously are working to improve our machines and community support, and want to take that work to a higher level. So, we’re rolling out “Version 5”, with things like stronger machines or adding more support staff, connecting workspaces with customers for their products… and we need your support to make it happen: every donation and share puts us one step closer to building up more plastic recycling workspaces around the world. 

⚡Support Version 5 today ⚡