Meet These 7 Power Women Who Solve The Plastic Pollution Crisis. #7 Aling Grace

A lot of garbage from Metro Manila and neighboring provinces end up on the shores of Manila Bay. And this is exactly where Aling Grace and her community are taking action every day to keep the water clean.?

Aling Grace is 49 years old. She joined the Aling Tindera program to make a living for her seven children. Her site is located in Barangay 649 Baseco where she earns a living weighing trash for her barangay. In her work as an Aling Tindera, Aling Grace encourages her community to keep the bay clean. She even goes house-to-house to collect plastic from her community while educating them on her experiences as an Aling Tindera.?

But what does it actually take to be an Aling Tindera?

An Aling Tindera is any woman in the community that is located near a proposed site of a container van, willing to be trained, can read and write, and in need of an additional source of income. Lastly, and most vitally, an Aling Tindera has a heart for the environment. It may be surprising how simple the criteria are, but ultimately it must be remembered that the program aims to find as many Aling Tinderas as possible, from as many communities as possible, to make the greatest impact possible.?

So, after Aling Grace bought the plastic from her community or collected it herself, she weighs, bales and stores the plastic waste in her container van. PCX ’s partner, HOPE: Business for Good , buys the Aling Tindera’s collected plastic and proceeds to hauling. The plastic waste is then delivered to HOPE’s recycling, upcycling and co-processing partners. As a result, plastic waste is diverted from nature.?

PCX’s partner, HOPE, launched the Aling Tindera Waste-to-Cash program in 2020 and has set up more than 100 sites across the Philippines since then. This program empowers women to become champions of sustainability in their communities by providing collection points for post-consumer plastic waste that allow for the aggregating, storing, and efficient transportation to partner processing facilities that will ensure plastic does not wind up in nature but reenters the circular economy.