Monitored Field Study
Piloting refill & reuse for a cleaner, stronger city.
A first-of-its-kind, city-led 6-month field study to test, measure and validate refill & reuse across retail, institutions and households — turning Taguig into a national model for circular consumption.
The study, in headline figures.
Three channels, one refilling network.
| Channel | Description | Scale | Primary products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Channel 1 · Hub & Spoke Sari-Sari Stores (ARPs) | Authorized Refilling Partners — neighbourhood stores as the primary, most validated spoke. Each gets a Starter Kit recoverable in 3 months. | 500–2,000 stores · 38 barangays | Condiments, cooking oil, household cleaning, personal care |
| Channel 2 · Institutional Offices, gov't, schools, carinderias | Bulk supply to organized institutional buyers, with the Taguig City Government as the first institutional partner. | 100 clients | Household cleaning (primary), personal care |
| Channel 3 · Direct-to-Consumer Households | Refillable container sets sold directly to families for at-home refilling. | 100 households | All SKU categories |
The Circular Infrastructure Center.
At People's Park, Taguig, the Circular Infrastructure Center (the Hub) is the operational heart of the study. It receives bulk product from NutriAsia, manages quality and safety — container washing, UV-C drying and dispensing calibration — and dispatches refills to ARPs via commissioned Toda operator delivery partners.
The Hub runs on a deliberate shared-infrastructure model that distributes responsibility across partners:
- Space provided by the City of Taguig (People's Park, at no rent).
- Equipment funded by Plastic Reboot (GEF-UNIDO-DENR).
- Day-to-day operations run by ReCirca / refillka.
- SOPs co-developed with NutriAsia QA for FDA / DOST compliance.
Why a shared Hub
No single party carries the full cost or risk. The City contributes space, Plastic Reboot the equipment, NutriAsia the product and quality standards, and refillka the operations and data — so the model is replicable for other cities without rebuilding everything from scratch.
CENRO waste workers as circular agents.
~1,000 existing CENRO waste workers activated
The study leverages roughly 1,000 of Taguig's existing CENRO waste workers for community profiling, monitoring, and incentivized participation — each earning supplementary income for every refill they facilitate or verify. This re-skilling is treated as structural inclusion, and the majority of these workers are women.
From pre-simulation to national standards.
How sachets avoided & carbon are measured.
Every refill is converted to a transparent, auditable figure using two published equations from the study methodology.
Equation A — Sachets avoided
The total volume refilled (in millilitres) is divided by that product's sachet size: S = Vtotal(mL) ÷ Vsachet(mL). Volume is first converted to mL by product category before dividing.
Equation B — Carbon avoided
Sachets avoided are multiplied by the per-sachet plastic weight and the emission factor: CR (kg CO₂e) = S × Wsachet(kg) × EF (6.0).
A translation layer makes the impact tangible — for example, carbon savings expressed as the equivalent of planting trees, or the avoided sachets visualised as lining the streets of Taguig. These are illustrative framings, not separately audited figures.
| Category | Conversion to mL | Sachet size | Sachets / gallon | Sachet weight | Emission factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Household cleaning | 1 gal = 3,785.41 mL | 18.5 mL | 204 | 0.0015 kg (~1.5 g) | 6.0 kg CO₂e/kg |
| Personal care (shampoo etc.) | 1 gal = 3,785.41 mL | 20.0 mL | 189 | ~1.2 g | 6.0 kg CO₂e/kg |
| Condiments (soy sauce / vinegar) | 1 L = 1,000 mL | 20.0 mL | 189 / gal | 0.0012 kg | 6.0 kg CO₂e/kg |
| Cooking oil | 1 L = 1,000 mL | 250.0 mL | 15 / gal | 0.0045 kg | 6.0 kg CO₂e/kg |
Try any quantity in the live impact calculator on the dashboard, which applies Equations A & B directly.
Revolving fund.
| Scenario | Revolving fund required | Recovery | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 ARPs minimum rollout | ₱2,475,000 | 3 months per tranche | Starter Kit ₱4,950 / store |
| 2,300 ARPs full rollout | ₱11,385,000 | 3 months per tranche | Starter Kit ₱4,950 / store |
Potential funding structures
LGSF / LGBTF loan fund · GAD budget (5% mandate) · DOST SETUP / SME financing · NGO / impact co-funding.
Waste-hauling savings to the city (6 mo).
The 7 partnership asks.
- Formal sign-off as the inaugural Plastic Reboot pilot city (proclamation / EO).
- Sanggunian resolution / mayoral memo enabling shared-responsibility commercial refilling.
- Circular Infrastructure Facility at People's Park (site + 8–10 container vans).
- City Government as refillka's first institutional client (procurement).
- Revolving fund for ARP Starter Kit deployment.
- Mayoral endorsement & community mobilization (Jul 1 launch, CENRO workers, city comms).
- A reusable container for every Taguigueño (“Taguig Refills” co-branded, co-funded with Plastic Reboot).
- Explore every figure in the live city-wide dashboard — actuals, projections and the impact calculator.
- See the full partnership framework and governance behind the study.
- Culminates in the Philippines' first National Refilling Standards submission.