How ‘pagpag’ is transformed into meals for the poor

Recycled leftover food or pagpag – mostly from fastfood chain trash – nourishes many of the country’s poor. Picked up from garbage trucks that bring them to dump sites, leftover parts of chicken, mostly bones, are washed before being boiled or fried, and being recooked in poor households. Some of them even make a living out of pagpag, selling them to those who would care to buy. Filmmaker Giselle Santos, who produced a documentary on pagpag, said she found out that dumpsites have their own supervisors who seek out the help of Tondo in sorting recyclable materials. They too, get to take home pagpag. “It’s quite saddening and frightening to realize that the gap between the poor and rich in our country can be measured by what we throw in our bins,” Santos said.


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