“The continued use of plastic bags have created many problems, foremost of which is the way they take up landfill space, where it will stay intact into the next few millennia. That’s for the plastic bags that do make their way into garbage disposal systems. Other plastic bags stray into waterways, including the ocean, where they kill marine life. These also block drainage systems.” – Davao City Councilor Pilar Braga
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Twelve years ago, Davao City banned smoking in public places. The campaign was so successful that it earned plaudits from the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA), a leading antismoking advocate group in the region.
“ Davao City is consistent with the implementation and enforcement of its smoke-free policies, and deserves all the accolades and recognition,” SEATCA director Bungon Ritthiphakdee pointed out.
In 2012, Davao City made another historic mark. In June of that year, it started the banning the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags and polystyrene foam in the city. The ordinance was the execution of the two rules stated in the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the Davao City Ecological Solid Waste Management Ordinance of 2009.
As stipulated in IRR Rule V: “All stores, as well as, ambulant vendors in Davao City shall sell or provide only the following as checkout bags or containers to customers: recycled or recyclable paper bags, biodegradable plastic bags, reusable bags (such as cloth bags), bags made of indigenous materials (such as buri, abaca, anahaw, bamboo and pineapple), or used corrugated boxes or cartons.”
Section 9 of IIR Rule V urges the participation of people buying items from malls and supermarkets. It said: “Shoppers or customers in all stores in Davao City are encouraged to provide for themselves reusable and recyclable shopping bags, when shopping or buying from stores. They are also encouraged to refuse a checkout bag from the store when buying small items that do not require a bag.”
The city ordinance also urged shoppers and consumers to properly disposed biodegradable plastic bags “like any other solid waste material.” They “should not be thrown in canals, water bodies, vacant lots and other public places.”
Currently, more than 10 local manufacturers of plastic bags are doubling their efforts to produce more oxo-biodegradable plastic bags for distribution to different business establishments in the city.
Those buying foods and drinks must realize that Section 10 of IIR Rules VI states: “Only recyclable, biodegradable or reusable containers are allowed to be used as a food and beverage containers.”
“Styrofoam is recommended (only) for the packaging of wet products because it can prevent contamination on meat and vegetables),” said Atty. Joseph Dominic Felizarta, chief of the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO).
The ordinance also urged those engaged in the food and packaging industry to “develop more environmentally-friendly containers as substitutes for polystyrene food containers.”
Violators of the ordinance will be fined P300 and will have to undergo a mandatory seminar for the first offense; P500 and a five-day community service for second-time offense; and P1,000 or a 10-day community service for third-time offenders. Fourth-time violators will be sued in court, fined between P2,000 to P5,000, and imprisoned for six months.
According to Felizarta, non-biodegradable plastic bags and polystyrene foam comprise 20 percent of the total garbage thrown at the sanitary landfill in the city. “We can save around 10 to 20 percent of waste being disposed each day,” he said, adding that the first phase of the sanitary landfill will be full in five years.
By Armando A. Mortejo
In the award-winning 1967 movie, The Graduate, the character portrayed by newcomer Dustin Hoffman (who earned a well-deserving Oscar nomination for his performance) asked some advice on career direction. “Plastics, my boy. Plastics,” he was told.
Businesses all over the world are heeding the advice. “Since they were introduced in the 1970s, plastic bags have infiltrated our lives,” wrote Caroline Williams in New Scientist. “Globally, we carry home between 500 billion and a trillion every year – about 150 bags for every person on earth, or, to put it another way, a million every minute and rising.”
Wherever you go, plastics abound. “Plastic bags could be the most ubiquitous consumer item on Earth,” wrote Brian Halweil of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute. “Their light weight, low cost and water resistance make them so convenient for carrying groceries, clothing or any other routine purchase that it’s hard to imagine life without them.”
Today, a growing number of environmentalists has considered plastic bag as public enemy no. 1. “Plastic bags are a waste of resources in that we use them once and throw them away,” Claire Wilton, senior waste campaigner for the London-based Friends of the Earth.
Plastic bags start as crude oil, natural gas or other petrochemical derivatives that are transformed in plastic factories into chains of hydrogen and carbon molecules known as polymers or polymer resin. The most common types of plastics are high density polyethylene (HDPE), polyethylene (PET), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), low density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), and polystyrene (PS).
High-density polyethylene resin is the industry standard for plastic bags. “The polyethylene is superheated and the molten resin is extruded as a tube, sort of like the process of making pasta,” said Halweil. “After the desired shape is achieved, the resin is cooled, hardens and can be flattened, sealed, punched or printed on.”
Although the lay person tends to think of plastic as a single material having numerous applications, more than 46 different polymers are actually in common use. A squeezable ketchup bottle, for example, is made of six layers of plastics, each engineered to do a different job, such as to give the bottle shape, strength, flexibility and impermeability.
The typical plastic bag that weighs just a few grams and is a few millimeters thick might seem thoroughly innocuous were it not for the sheer volume of global production: 500 billion to one trillion a year.
Producing plastic bags uses about 20%-40% less energy and water than paper sack production does, and generates less air pollution and solid waste, according to life cycle assessments by both industry and non-industry groups.
Officials from the plastics industry also note that plastic bags take up less space in a landfill and that neither product decomposes under the prevailing conditions in most landfills.
That’s one side of the coin. The other side: Given the proper conditions, however, the paper sack would decompose rapidly, while the plastic bag would not. In reality, many plastic bags do not find their way to landfills.
A survey conducted by the EcoWaste Coalition and Greenpeace Philippines in 2006 discovered plastic bags and other synthetic packaging materials to comprise 76 percent of garbage retrieved from Manila Bay. In Laguna de Bay, plastic bags make up 25% of the solid waste that is polluting the lake.
“Plastic bags end up as litter as it makes its way to landfills, drainages and bodies of water, taking decades to decompose and damaging marine life when dumped into the sea,” said Senator Loren Legarda in a statement.
Because they are usually buoyant, plastic bags are widely distributed by ocean currents and wind. The World Wildlife Fund for Nature claimed that nearly 200 different marine species die due to ingestion and choking from plastic bags.
“Discarded plastic bands encircle mammals, fish, and birds and tighten as their bodies grow,” reminded the Washington, D.C.-based World Resources Institute. “Turtles, whales, and other marine mammals have died after eating plastic sheeting.”
In the United States, plastic gears, six-pack yokes, sandwich bags and Styrofoam cups are so abundant in the ocean that they kill up to one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals each year.
Discussing plastics in general term, a report which appeared in Environmental Action noted, “Many of the chemicals used in the production and processing of plastic are highly toxic, resulting in hazardous wastes, toxic air emissions and discharges of toxic effluents into waterways.”
The report further stated: “People don’t think plastic products are toxic because by the time they get to supermarket shelves, they’re not. But ingredients in plastic production have dangerous properties for those who work with them or live near plastic factories.”
Environmentalists caution against burning those plastics to get rid of them completely. Scientists say that chlorine-based plastics, when incinerated, contribute to the formation of dioxins, a poisonous waste that forms when chlorine is exposed to extreme heat.
“Dioxins are considered highly toxic and are implicated in weakening the immune system, affecting fetal development and causing a skin disorder called chloracne,” wrote Chynthia P. Shea, a former staff member of the Worldwatch Institute.
Just some thought about styrofoam. It is made from the plastic polystyrene, which is based on building blocks called styrene monomers. When you drink your steaming cup of coffee or spoon your chicken noodle soup out of a styrofoam cup, you also take in small doses of chemicals that leach from it.
“Trace amounts of styrene as well as various chemical additives in polystyrene migrate into food – particularly when liquids are hot,” explains Dr. Olga Naidenko, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group. However, the US Department of Health and Human Services says that the levels released from food containers are very low.
And now the good news: Some manufacturers have recently introduced biodegradable or compostable plastic bags. But despite this glimmer of hope, plastic bags continue to become a menace in most parts of the country. Across the world, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore and Taiwan are among the countries that ban the use of plastic. These countries have enacted local legislations to intensify their national law that prohibits plastic use.
In May 2007, the village of Modbury in south Devon of England became Europe’s first plastic bag-free town, selling reuseable and biodegradable bags instead. Years earlier, in 1999, the French island of Corsica became the first to ban plastic bags in large stores.
In Ireland, a plastic bag tax was passed in 2002; the tax created an initial 90 percent drop in bag use. In April 2008, San Francisco became the first city in the United States to outlaw plastic grocery bags.
Meanwhile, Elsie David of JG Summit Petrochemicals, Corp. bats for recovery and recycling of plastic bags. “National government should come up with a bill on recovery and recycling,” she said. “We should think of how to increase recycling in the country. Another solution is to give citizens a choice. We have to change the way we think about shopping bags.”
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