Senate urged to pass 'tougher, more comprehensive' bill banning single-use plastics
MANILA, Philippines — Environment groups on Tuesday called on the Senate to pass a more stringent and comprehensive bill that will prohibit the production and use of single-use plastic products and packaging.
A petition signed by nearly 58,000 individuals was also sent to Senate President Vicente Sotto III to pass a bill that will address the problem from the very first stages—at extraction and production.
“We now call on the Senate to pass a tougher and more comprehensive bill anchored on upstream solutions as opposed to end-of-life waste management,” the petition said.
Groups asked senators to approve a legislation that will set an immediate timeline for the phasing out of single-use plastic products, promote and provide incentives to eco-friendly alternatives and systems such as refills-and-deposit schemes, and mandate producers to cut back on the use of single-use plastics.
The definition of single-use products in the measure should be also consistent with the definition of Non-Environmentally Acceptable Products and Packaging (NEAPP) under Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.
They added that the proposed regulation should uphold the existing ban on incineration, and the exclusion of burning and thermal waste treatment.
Four bills seeking to regulate the production and use of single-use plastic products have been filed in the Senate. These bills remain pending at the committee level.
House bill
Last month, the House of Representatives passed House Bill 9147, which seeks to phase out single-use products.
While it is a first step in the right direction, the proposed measure lacked strong sense of urgency, the groups said.
The bill seeks to phase out, within a year of enactment into law, the production, importation, sale, distribution, provision, and use of single-use plastic products such as drinking straws, stirrers, confetti, and packaging.
It also aims to mandate, within four years, the halting of production and use of cutlery, film wrap, packaging, sachets and pouches, and beverage containers.
“In acting on plastic pollution, we do have to balance swift response with bold goals that are focused on upstream solutions that stop plastic pollution at its source and life cycle impacts instead of just waste management when plastic is already in our environment and something that we are already facing,” Marian Ledesma, Greenpeace zero waste campaigner, said in a briefing Tuesday.
“There shouldn’t be loopholes or policy gaps that could be exploited by producers and it should address the solution head on, at source, without relying on methods, technologies or practices just because they’re readily available or economically feasible,” she added.
Ledesma also stressed that the publication and enforcement of NEAPP would have removed the need for a law banning single-use plastics.
In February, 20 years after the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act became law, the commission included the first items on the list: plastic soft drink straws and coffee stirrers. However, the resolution has yet to be fully signed
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