As early as second quarter of 2022, Raroco Insurance Brokers Inc. and all staff have been enthusiastically participating in a permanent initiative to reduce waste not only in our landfills, but also keeping away harmful waste such as metal and plastic from our environment and oceans. All office staff is encouraged to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible. When scratch paper, plastics and other junk (carton boxes, envelopes, books, folders, etc.) are already utilized to the maximum and can no longer be recycled, that is when we turn to upcycling, which then provides an unlimited available usage of raw materials.
Several kilos of junk such as plastics, paper and metal was collected and sorted by year end, and it was a surprise to know how much waste was produced at the workplace. It left everyone wondering how much was produced in previous years that could’ve been collected and upcycled. But better late than never!
Why go through the hassle of collecting junk?
It not only benefits marine and wildlife habitat, but the Earth’s overall ecosystem that in turn affects all of human life. The facts about plastic waste have become more alarming. According to WebMD, currently, all humans consume about 5 grams or the size of a credit card’s worth of plastic every week! If this does not disturb your consciousness, let me tell you why it should. “There are more than 10,000 different chemicals… used to alter a plastic’s physical characteristics—making it softer, more rigid, or more flexible, says Hanna Dusza, PhD, of the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences at Utrecht University. As plastics degrade and become microplastics, these chemicals likely remain,” based on an article entitled, Microplastics and Health Risks: What do we really know?
All these chemicals in the microplastics leech into everything. The toxicity levels and adverse effects it could cause on all of Earthly life in the long run has yet to surface, and prevention is better than damage control. If a fish or chicken you ate for lunch, also lunched on microplastics then you are definitely dining on extra microplastics, too! If plastics turn into microplastics in the soil, or in the seas and rivers, and dams that flow into our water supply, then like it or not, we are all absolutely ingesting it!
For more info on the hazards of plastic pollution, see these links:
https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20221028/microplastics-health-risks-what-do-we-really-know
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/plastic-pollution
To mitigate this harm, RAROCO Insurance partnered with Orodio Junk Shop owned by Vicenta P. Orodio and her family. The junk shop is closest to our office vicinity situated in Kalayaan Avenue, Makati City and has been active since 1968.
Objects such as metal, aluminum/copper, plastic, cans, iron, paper, and bottles are sold to the junk shop who then profits from these raw materials by auctioning them off to bigger companies for the manufacturing of goods. Metal, aluminum/copper, plastic, cans, iron, and bottles are subjected to intense heat undergoing the process of melting before they are recycled into new products such as steel bars, plastic pellets, and more bottles. Paper on the other hand is subjected to shredding. Once these materials have been processed, they are distributed to a wide-spread number of companies that vary not only locally but internationally as well.
Plastic products have been purchased by a company situated in Valenzuela City who import plastic pellets to the countries Korea and China, shredded paper has been delivered to both China and India, while steel bars made from melted metal have been occasionally bought by Steel Asia.
Here are clips of how the different junk types are consolidated and measured:
For our first delivery, last January 5, 2023, here are the results of our efforts:
Note that we were able to accumulate a total of 21.5 kilos of assorted plastic in less than a year!
For our second delivery, last Feb. 28, 2023, here are the results of our efforts:
An additional 9 kilos of plastic in a little over a month!
The cashback we received will be used to help in our office expenses. Every little bit counts because as Depeche Mode sings, “everything counts in large amounts.” Our succeeding drop-offs will be done on a quarterly basis. The statistical output will be tabulated and monitored.
In the long run, this initiative exercises our corporate responsibility to improve the well-being of our employees, and most importantly contribute to the betterment of the local and global community, and to all earthlings at large. We humbly urge that all public and private organizations and companies adopt similar initiatives to reduce waste and pollution as well.
Over the course of 2023, the company managed to gather a minimum of 301 kg of recyclable waste. 224 kg. of paper makes up the majority of it. See below table.
The primary goal of this project is to enhance the well-being of our staff members while also making a positive impact on the local and even global community. We respectfully request that all businesses and organizations, both public and private, take comparable actions. We have one Earth to live on.
