San Miguel Corp. set to shift to biodegradable plastic packages

MANILA, Philippines — San Miguel Corp., the country’s diversified conglomerate, will shift to a new fully-certified biodegradable plastic packaging, responding to growing calls around the world for businesses and conglomerates to do their share in preserving the environment.

The company tapped a local firm that has been developing and testing the technology for the last five years to provide the new packaging to SMC which the company, would initially use for food and non-food products, such as cement and feed sacks, grocery bags and food packaging.

SMC president and chief operating officer Ramon Ang said the company is partnering with Philippine Bioresins Corp., a small but innovative company that has successfully developed and tested biodegradable plastics.

“Initially, we will use it for cement packaging. What we will use is a biodegradable plastic woven packaging or sack. This is proudly developed by Filipino inventors, using local materials, and made by local workers,” Ang said.

Philippine Bioresins Corp. received an Environmental Technology Verification certificate from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Industrial Technology Development Institute.

The DOST verification confirmed that the biodegradable polypropylene produced by the company will be 64.65 percent degraded in 24 months as compared to non-biodegradable plastics (4.5 percent in 24 months).

The move will be the newest addition to SMC’s sustainability measures. Other similar measures employed by SMC include the zero-waste returnable glass bottle system, and manufacturing processes following circular economy principles – where by-products are re-used to create other products.

In addition to using biodegradable cement bags, the company’s cement business also currently buys plastic water bottles and bags, for use as fuels for its cement plants. It also uses discarded rubber tires and industrial sewage waste as secondary fuel for its cement plants.

“This is another way that we are helping turn plastic wastes that would have otherwise ended up in landfills or bodies of water, into useful and much-needed products – in this case, cement, which is used to construct buildings and infrastructure.”

Ang said the company is seriously implementing sustainability measures.

SMC has already stopped the use of plastic bottled water business and has taken on the challenge to reduce group-wide non-product water use by 50 percent by 2025. It has also poured more resources into major projects to clean up bodies of water as well as into research that supports plastic waste reduction.

“We have always been looking for innovative environmental technologies, and we are excited about this development. We are looking forward to using biodegradable plastics, and this is just the beginning, as they are developing other technologies in this field,” Ang said.

Ang urged other companies to also look for ways to lessen their negative impact on the environment.