LocationsKaren Cepeda
Amplifying multi-sectoral voices for a shared national direction for plastic action and circularity
September 10, 2026
Waste workers navigate a sea of waste that clogged the Redemptorist Water Channel in Parañaque City, Metro Manila amidst monsoon rains.
Karen Cepeda / UNDP
In the Philippines, the rainy season often reveals the problem of plastic pollution in ways that are impossible to ignore.
In recent weeks, heavy downpour triggered flooding in many cities and municipalities across the country, showing what happens when waste accumulates in places where water needs to flow. An example is the Redemptorist Water Channel in Parañaque where a massive cleanup operation brought together multiple government agencies to clear plastic and other debris that clogged the waterway leading to Manila Bay.
The scale of the recent flooding illustrates what is at stake. According to recent data released by the Office of Civil Defense (OCD), the combined effects of the recent tropical cyclones and the enhanced southwest monsoon affected 2.5 million families with infrastructure damage estimated at P6.12 billion and agricultural losses at P2.32 billion.
While these losses cannot be attributed to plastic waste alone, its accumulation in waterways and drainage systems can obstruct water flow and add pressure to already vulnerable systems. The cost of responding to floods therefore also points to the value of preventing waste from reaching these systems in the first place.
The cleanup is an important part of the response. But it also raises a bigger question: what does it take to prevent plastic from reaching our waterways, rivers, and oceans?
The rain reveals only a fraction of the issue. The plastic sachets, labo, bottles, and containers fished out by waste workers from waterways all began as products or packaging. They passed through businesses and households before being discarded, eventually entering a collection system, or left without a viable pathway for recovery.
Addressing that challenge means looking beyond what happens at the end of a product’s life. It requires understanding the entire plastics system and bringing together the people and institutions that shape it.
These are central to the work behind the Philippines’ National Plastic Action Roadmap. Envisioned to provide a shared national direction for addressing plastic pollution and advancing a circular economy for plastics, the Roadmap is rooted in multi-sectoral data, analysis, expertise, experience, and perspectives.
Building the evidence for action
Plastic waste is sorted at a junk shop in Metro Manila, one of the many points in the country’s complex plastic waste flow.
Karen Cepeda / UNDP
A national baseline assessment of plastic waste flows and pollution was commissioned to help establish an evidence base for understanding how plastics move through the country’s system from consumption and use to collection, disposal, recovery, and leakage. This informed a System Change Scenario, which examined what could happen if the country moves beyond business-as-usual approaches and combines interventions across the plastics value chain, highlighting the importance of including upstream interventions like reduction, reuse, and substitution alongside improvements in collection, recycling, and disposal.
A Metrics Advisory Group brought together technical experts and key stakeholders to review and validate the baseline results and scenario modelling that would inform the Roadmap. The baseline is also intended to be strengthened over time as more data and locally relevant evidence become available.
In addition, teams were also commissioned to study the impacts of plastic pollution on gender equality, social inclusion, and biodiversity – areas that cannot be captured by looking at waste figures alone. The Gender Equity and Social Inclusion assessment surfaced insights on the impact of plastic, plastic pollution, and the transition to circularity on different sectors, including vulnerable groups. Meanwhile, a Plastics and Biodiversity assessment explored the implications of plastic pollution for ecosystems and the communities that are highly dependent on them.
Stakeholders discuss the findings of the assessments on the impacts of plastic pollution on gender equality, social inclusion, and biodiversity.
Karen Cepeda / UNDP
These studies broadened the question beyond how much plastic becomes waste. They asked who is affected, who participates in the system, who bears the costs, what happens to ecosystems, and what a just transition could look like.
Evidence shows that the Philippines is not starting from scratch. National government agencies are shaping policies and regulation, while local governments are managing waste and responding to conditions on the ground. Businesses are making sustainable changes to products, packaging, supply chains, and investments, while recyclers and other similar actors are working to recover materials and bring them back into circulation. Civil society and communities are amplifying the impact sof plastic pollution on vulnerable sectors, researchers are contributing evidence, and development partners are bringing technical expertise and resources.
But interventions are often fragmented. The Circular Economy Stocktaking exercise helped make this landscape more visible, mapping interventions already underway or being planned across the country. It showed that action is already happening across many parts of the value chain.
A map of the circular interventions underway or being planned in the Philippines as collected from stakeholders during the NPAP Circular Economy Stocktaking exercise from late 2025 to early 2026.
The challenge is how to connect, strengthen, and scale those efforts. The Roadmap seeks to provide a shared direction so that different forms of action can reinforce one another.
Grounding the Roadmap in lived realities
Plastic pollution crosses institutional and sectoral boundaries.Developing solutions therefore requires bringing diverse perspectives together to understand and identify what can realistically be changed.
NPAP Philippines organized stakeholder and public consultations, thematic working groups, and government discussions where evidence, assumptions, gaps, and opportunities were explored. This approach recognizes that those who will help implement the Roadmap should have a voice in it.
A Flexible Plastics Recycling Working Group brought together stakeholders to explore the challenges of recovering and recycling flexible plastics and the conditions needed to improve circularity. An Upstream Working Group examinedopportunities to address plastic waste before it is generated, including reuse and refill approaches and the enabling conditions needed for them to work.
A Circular Economy 101 workshop for the media also brought journalists into the conversation, building a common understanding of circular economy concepts and the systems and policy issues behind plastic pollution. It helped connect the technical conversation around circularity with the stories and public discussions that can improve public understanding of the issue.
Stakeholders exchange insights during the second convening of the Flexible Plastics Recycling Working Group.
Karen Cepeda / UNDP
These discussions reflect how interconnected the plastics system is. Reuse, for example, can depend on business practices, consumer behavior, infrastructure, and policy, while recycling can depend on product design, collection systems, market demand, and the economics material recovery.
Emerging work on social inclusion and behavioral change further recognizes that the transition to a circular economy is not only technical or economic.
In October 2025, NPAP stakeholders met for a public consultation on the draft Roadmap. They examined its findings, proposed outcomes, and action points, while expressing interest in further opportunities to contribute to its development.This reinforced the importance of treating consultation as an ongoing process rather than a single event.
Stakeholders representing different parts of the plastic value chain exchange perspectives during the validation workshop for the Philippine National Plastic Action Roadmap, contributing to a shared national direction and stronger foundations for implementation.
Karen Cepeda / UNDP
In August 2026, stakeholders came together again for a validation workshop to review the emerging direction of the Roadmap and provide further inputs on its priorities, proposed actions, and implementation considerations. The workshop created another opportunity to test the Roadmap against the experiences and realities of those working across the plastics system.
The NPAP Steering Board also met to review progress of the Roadmap, alongside updates from the GESI assessment and thematic working groups. Chaired by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and co-chaired by Coca Cola Philippines, it brings together senior leaders from government, industry, development partners, civil society, and other key sectors to guide the partnership and its priorities.
The NPAP Steering Board, composed of leaders from government, private sector, development partners, and civil society meet to provide strategic direction for the National Plastic Action Roadmap.
Karen Cepeda / UNDP
It was an opportunity for NPAP leadership to consider the evidence and insights gathered through the development process and provide direction on emerging priorities and next steps.
Finding common ground
As technical secretariat, UNDP worked with DENR and NPAP stakeholders to surface different strands of evidence and insight and translate them into a coherent national direction grounded in analysis and the realities of implementation.
The overall development process reinforced the approach that the Roadmap was shaped not only by technical analysis, but through an ongoing process where stakeholders can review, question, and contribute to its direction.
The credibility of the Roadmap rests on the analysis behind it, the breadth of voices that have helped chart its path, and the partnerships needed to put it into action.
Stakeholder engagement, therefore, does not end with the launch. Inputs gathered through the validation process will help strengthen the Roadmap, while further work will focus on developing its implementation matrix and its eventual policy adoption.
At the end of the day, shared ownership of the Roadmap matters because implementation will rely on the same institutions and stakeholders who have contributed to its development. Ultimately, its value will be measured by how it effectively turns fragmented efforts into coordinated action.
About NPAP
NPAP Philippines is a locally driven, multi-stakeholder platform uniting leaders from government, business, development organizations, academia, civil society and vulnerable groups to tackle plastic pollution and accelerate the country’s transition to a circular economy. Led by the DENR, it is supported by the World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership and partners like the UK Government, the Government of Canada, and The Coca-Cola Foundation. UNDP serves as NPAP’s technical secretariat in the Philippines.
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