Mother Earth Foundation

Across parts of the Global South, less than half of waste is collected at all. What isn’t collected is often burned or dumped, creating a crisis for public health and the climate.

The Philippines itself contributes around 36% of the world’s ocean plastic waste, with 70% of Filipinos lacking access to proper disposal facilities.

As an island nation, storms, rivers and drainage systems mean discarded packaging can travel straight from a street to the sea, so pollution can’t be solved after it reaches the water.

Fixing this means circular systems that bring informal waste workers into the process and deal properly with organic waste, not just plastic, built at the source, city by city.

Mother Earth Foundation began in 1998, when five women, including current Chairman Sonia Mendoza, organised their Quezon City neighbours to separate waste, compost organics and turn an empty lot into a community garden. That same idea now runs city by city: households sort waste at source, community-run facilities collect and sort it, and organic waste is composted.

In the City Government of San Fernando, Pampanga, a programme co-developed with the city has achieved up to 89% waste diversion, holding steady through several changes in political leadership.

Mother Earth Foundation pioneered the Zero Waste Cities model in Asia over more than 25 years, since replicated in Indonesia, Vietnam and Tanzania. Because it doesn’t depend on one expensive facility, others can adapt it to their own geography and budget.

Its Waste Assessment and Brand Audit methodology traces discarded packaging back to the companies behind it, and is now used by Break Free From Plastic and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. The Foundation also champions the waste workers who make the system run, advocating for the Magna Carta of Waste Workers to standardise their pay and conditions.

As a Finalist, The Earthshot Prize will help Mother Earth Foundation secure flexible, multi-year funding and connect it with implementation partners and governments, including support to develop a Zero Waste Hub. By 2030, it aims to help the Philippines become the first developing country where zero waste is the default.

Its work feeds into what researchers call a positive tipping point, a threshold beyond which change becomes self-sustaining. Mother Earth Foundation’s proof that community-run zero waste systems work at city scale is part of what the world needs to reach a global target of managing 80% of municipal waste safely by 2030.