Solid waste management body urged to ban single-use plastic
MANILA, Philippines — Local governments, including the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Cebu, are calling on the National Solid Waste Management Commission to ban single-use plastic and include it in the priority list of Non-Environmentally Acceptable Products and Packaging.
Under the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, the commission includes the Department of the Environment, Department of the Interior and Local Government and 12 other government agencies as well as three representatives from the private sector.
The Cebu provincial council adopted a resolution in March "recognizing the big chunk of government resources spent on managing the increasing volume of waste materials largely from plastic bags and packaging despite the regulations imposed by the province on these products," environmental group Oceana said in a press release.
The local governments of Cebu City and Sibonga in Cebu province and Libmanan in Camarines Sur have passed similar resolutions on the effect of plastic bags and packaging on the environment.
Parañaque, Iloilo City and Cebu City have also already passed ordinances regulating the use of single-use plastic.
"The local governments, which are bearing the burden of 'managing' the unmanageable plastics residuals in their areas, raised their voices in sending a strong signal to the commission to fulfill its almost two decades-long unperformed mandate to submit a list of banned items that are unsafe in production, use, post-consumer use, or that produce or release harmful by-products when discarded, Gloria Estenzo Ramos, Oceana vice president, said.
"Single-use plastics should be on top of the list that the commission should have done 19 years ago.If the production and trade of hundreds of millions of single-use plastics are not banned, its collection is forever the sole responsibility of the municipality or city," she also said.
"We call on the commission under the leadership of Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu to implement the ban on single-use plastic from the source by stopping their production," Oceana also said, stressing that the COVID-19 pandemic has already increased plastic waste because of the packaging needed to keep personal protective equipment sterile.
"We recognize the foremost objective of saving lives. However, the government can stop the continuous production of single-use plastics for other purposes and packaging to save our waterways, rivers and seas, and marine organisms that have become the dumping ground of humans’ unbridled consumption and utilization of plastics," Ramos said.
Oceana, along with the Break Free From Plastic, Kids for Kids Philippines, Sea and Terrestrial Environment Protectors, and University of the Philippines Marine Biological Society launched the plastic-free July campaign and are calling on the public to reduce plastic use as well.
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