Palawan turns BOTEful as Ginebra San Miguel drive hits record

Insider Spotlight

• Palawan towns collected 70,000 bottles in six months
• Campaign marks highest tally since 2017 launch
• Brooke’s Point barangay led collections nationwide
  
  
  

Communities in Palawan have emerged as top contributors to Ginebra San Miguel Inc.’s (GSMI) nationwide bottle recovery campaign, collecting more than 70,000 used glass bottles in just six months under the company’s BOTEful Philippines program.

The initiative, carried out across 21 barangays in Brooke’s Point and Narra, marked the largest collection recorded since the program was launched in 2017. The latest campaign pushed the total number of bottles collected nationwide to more than 240,000.

The big picture

Barangay Tubtub in Brooke’s Point recorded the highest collection among participating communities, retrieving 11,489 bottles that would otherwise have ended up in landfills, waterways, or coastal areas.

The bottles are returned to GSMI for reuse or recycling into new containers, supporting efforts to reduce glass waste while promoting resource recovery at the community level. 

Residents gathered bottles from homes, public areas, and collection points in exchange for incentives and redeemable points for selected San Miguel Food and Beverage products.

According to a company release, GSMI considers wider community participation critical to the success of the initiative, noting that glass bottles can only be reused or recycled when they are properly collected and returned instead of discarded as waste.

Why it matters

The BOTEful Philippines program forms part of the broader sustainability initiatives of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) and San Miguel Foundation (SMF), which aim to make waste reduction and recycling more accessible through partnerships with local governments and barangays.

BOTEful Philippines was first introduced in Aparri in October 2017, where over 6,000 bottles were collected during its pilot run. Since then, the initiative has expanded to Batanes, Pangasinan, Negros Occidental, Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, and most recently, Palawan.

“The Palawan experience showed us how much more we can do when communities fully support the program,” said Ramon S. Ang, chair and CEO of SMC, GSMI’s parent company.

 “A bottle that is returned can still be reused or recycled. A bottle that is thrown away becomes waste. That is why we want to bring this initiative to more areas and encourage more people to take part.”

GSMI said the initiative also supports the government’s solid waste management goals by encouraging communities to take a more active role in recycling and environmental stewardship. —Princess Daisy C. Ominga | Ed: Corrie S. Narisma