Evaluating Recycling Opportunities for Plastic Packaging Waste in the Philippines through Scenario-Based Modeling of Municipal Solid Waste Systems

The increasing generation of plastic packaging waste poses a significant challenge to sustainable waste management and circular economy transition in the Philippines. This study evaluates recycling opportunities for plastic packaging waste using a scenario-based modeling approach grounded in national solid waste data. A quantitative framework was developed to estimate waste generation, plastic fractions, and recovery potential across residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial sectors. A standardized population of 100,000 was used to enable consistent comparison across three scenarios representing low-performance, baseline, and high-performance waste management conditions. Model results indicate that recycling opportunity is highly sensitive to system efficiency parameters, particularly collection, segregation, and recycling rates. Estimated recoverable plastic waste increased from 44.36 kg/day under low-performance conditions to 354.48 kg/day in the baseline scenario and up to 2,123.82 kg/day under high-performance conditions, representing an approximate 48-fold improvement. Across all scenarios, the residential sector contributed the largest share of plastic waste, highlighting the importance of household-level interventions. The findings demonstrate that improvements in waste collection systems, segregation at source, and recycling infrastructure can significantly enhance resource recovery potential. The proposed modeling framework provides a practical decision-support tool for policymakers and local government units to evaluate strategies for improving recycling outcomes. This study contributes to ongoing efforts toward circular economy implementation by offering data-driven insights into optimizing plastic waste management systems in the Philippine context.