Demand for eco-friendly plastics remain low

Despite the call for retail players to use biodegradable shopping bags to lessen the impact towards climate change, one of Cebu’s largest plastic manufacturers sees lesser demand for this particular product.

Edgard Alan Po, assistant general manager of Winner Plastic Products Corporation said that because of the high cost of manufacturing biodegradable plastics, most retail players are still inclined to use the traditional plastic products.

Cost of biodegradable plastic costs 30 percent higher than traditional, and the expensive rate of making this product remains a dilemma that explains why most retail establishments are still using traditional plastic.

“As of now, there is still no demand for biodegradable plastic. Although, we already have the technology, but orders are not sustaining the business,” Po said in an interview.

Plastic bags and packaging have been blamed by local government cleaners, even in Cebu, for clogging waterways that contribute to floods - a perennial problem in most coastal cities. In fact, Cebu City alone produces more than 400 tons of garbage a day, mostly plastic.

“I think Cebu is not yet ready to implement the ‘green bag’ trend,” Po said adding that while the shelf-life of a biodegradable bag only last for a month, delayed garbage collection in the Metropolis is also seen as one of the hindrances why most businesses are not keen of using green plastics.

Po hopes that if the cost of manufacturing biodegradable plastic will go down, Cebu can already fully implement this ‘green bag’ campaign.

He said now that most retailers have thinning profit margins, cost of operational materials such as shopping bags, are very important.

The Philippine Retailers Association (PRA-Cebu) recently launched its “green bag” campaign, to pioneer a nationwide advocacy encouraging retailers to use environment-friendly shopping bags, instead of plastic.

Dubbed as “Every Bag Counts” or EBC, PRA-Cebu president Melanie Ng said the organization will initially drum up awareness in using “green bag” strategy especially to its member retailers, as well as encouraging consumers to use their re-cycled shopping bags.

To address on the cost issue, Ng said industry players will have to implement an effective program that will lesser the cost of purchasing ‘green bags’ or biodegradable bags.

Bulk-buying for environment-friendly shopping bags, as an organization is one of the options, Ng said as she has already lists of suppliers making biodegradable bags, although price of this material is still a big issue.

Requiring consumers to bring their own shopping bags, just like other countries are doing, is also seen as another “revolutionary” change for the shopping culture in the Philippines. “We don’t know how consumers will respond to this.”

There are over a hundred PRA-Cebu members. Ng said few of them including her company Premium Concepts, and NGenius are also implementing “green retailing” initiatives, but adopting this advocacy will ultimately depend on the retail company owner.

“Our members are mostly SMEs [Small and Medium Entrepreneurs], cost factor in this advocacy is a primary issue,” Ng said. However, she added that PRA-Cebu could also come up with suggestions on how to save in other areas like power consumption, in order to offset the cost of changing to biodegradable shopping bags.