Whenever I pass by Cebuana Lhuillier near our home, I always see the a small standee outside of it that says “Free ₱10 texts for every ₱5 Sachet of Surf”. I thought a lot of people must be redeeming their free texts because if you think about it, it’s really worth the money. You get more than you pay for.
Imagine buying a ₱5 sachet of Surf, using it for your laundry and then aside from the soap, you also get ₱10 worth of text messages!
This is why the Sachet Recovery Program of Surf, Cebuana Lhuillier, and Smart is so successful! Last week, I was able to witness how these three industry leaders renewed their commitment to champion environmental sustainability.
With their shared mission to improve Filipino lives, the partners launched the third year of their Sachet Recovery Program at the Mandaluyong Elementary School. Through their joint efforts, the partners were able to create a process that is easy, convenient and rewarding, the program involves and educates more consumers about sustainability and waste recycling.
Just in case you’re wondering, the Sachet Recovery Program has been teaching proper waste segregation and recycling by encouraging millions of Filipinos to collect empty Surf sachets in exchange for free Smart texts at any Cebuana Lhuillier branch nationwide since 2013.
Unilever Philippines Vice President for Home Care Benjie Yap shared the achievements of the Sachet Recovery Program from the previous years. “In Year 1, we collected 4.5 million sachets, which we converted into 45,000 pavers. In 2014, we collected an additional 7.5 million empty sachets nationwide,” Yap said, adding that some of the pavers were readily donated to Barangay Union Coastal of Mayorga, Leyte and served as foundation to the environmentally-friendly laundry facility, Surf Labahan.
To create the pavers, the Surf sachets goes through this machine and are shredded into tiny pieces.
It is then mixed into cement then water is added.
Then it is molded into a paver and left under the sun to dry. (The one on the left is the wet cement with shredded wet sachets before being molded)
After it goes through that process, it will yield these useful pavers that are not only durable but also environment-friendlyy.
The students of Mandaluyong Elementary School even painted some of the pavers…
They got creative and painted it with any design they wanted…
The event ended with the partners donating 7,000 cement pavers to the Mandaluyong Elementary School. The construction materials—made from hundreds of thousands of shredded empty sachets—will form pathways to improve school grounds and make walking around the school more convenient for students.
We are also using Surf Powder at home, sadly we are not Smart subscribers. 🙁
Aww, that’s too bad.
I love that these lessons are being taught to the kids while they are young. It’s important to raise them with these values.
Those bricks are cute! How nice it is for the company to host this kind of events for the young minds!
Omg how cute are these bricks?!?! How great for a company to be teaching such great lessons to kiddos 🙂
Oh what a great thing to be apart of. I love those painted brings. Cherish those! Glad they donated to the elementary school.
Such a wonderful opportunity to deliver and convey a powerful message. I love that big companies from the Philippines are trying their best to make a difference. I bet the event was such a blast to be a part of.
I love programs that promote sustainability! I am so glad that this is being shown and taught to the younger generations!
This is such a great idea. What a wonderful lesson to teach the kids. I love the bricks they are cute.
This is so wonderful. I love that children are actively involved in environmental sustainability.
What an amazing project!! I had no idea that this project existed sounds amazing!
Great to see and really nice to know that such big brands are leading the way for a more sustainable environment. Kudos to them! Hope the other big brands will follow what they started.
I’ve never heard this campaign before, but looks really helpful for a lot of people. I really love seeing campaign like this.
What a wonderful way to teach children. It is important to teach those values at a young age
This sounds like an amazing project making a fantastic difference! I really love those bricks too!
I haven’t heard about this before but I love it! Also loved that you guys made those bricks– so cool!
those bricks are amazing!! I love it!
Love the painting of the bricks. It is nice that this program involves and educates us about sustainability and waste recycling.