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Filipinos are starting to go green, thanks to the effort of the biggest mall chains in the Philippines– SM Malls and Ayala Malls. They created environmental programs that aim to raise awareness about the environment and raise some money from recycling.
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SM Malls were the first to come up with the idea. The idea is to use the parking lot as place where people can bring all of the clutter and unused things in their house and sell that to private recyclers that are participating in the program. Almost all SM stores in the whole country participate in the Trash to Cash Recycling Market which is help once every few weeks or so.
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The Ayala Malls came up with the Recyclables Fair. They followed the same idea as SM Malls. They are attracting more and more people every time they hold the fair.
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The success of these programs tell us that Filipinos are already on the path to going green. It is also a way to rid their house of the clutter and unused items. They will also earn some money while tidying their things at home.
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This is also beneficial to the malls. Once the people traded their recyclables for cash, there is nowhere else to go than straight to the department store. The malls may not directly earn from the program but ultimately the money that the people will earn from selling their recyclables will end up in the mall’s cashiers.
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The best thing about it is that it is benefiting everyone including the earth. Filipinos are realizing that they can help in saving the environment– that the environmental problems that we are facing are not the problems of the government alone. I hope that more and more people will participate in the programs.