A PROPOSAL to ban the use of plastic bags in Cebu City for three more days is necessary and reasonable. The city’s residents can take it as a challenge that while they no longer use plastic bags on two days each week—Wednesdays and Saturdays—consumers in neighboring Mandaue City have lived with a total ban for about 14 months now.
If Mandaue City’s households, businesses and individuals can give up plastic to help prevent floods, certainly Cebu City’s residents can do the same, right? It would help inspire Cebu and other local governments if Mandaue City shares its findings on how the ban has improved their situation. Is flooding less of a problem since Mandauehanons gave up plastic bags, in favor of paper and recyclable bags? How much has the switch to recyclable bags helped?
It’s an urgently needed switch, when one considers the role that the Philippines and four other Southeast Asian countries play in marine pollution. A study released in 2015 by a team led by Dr. Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia pointed out that 4.8 million to 12.7 million metric tons of plastic waste from coastal countries went into the ocean in 2010 alone. Five nations in Southeast Asia—Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia—were among the top 10 sources.
Each year, “more than eight million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans,” the nongovernment organization Plastic Oceans estimates. Imagine that: more than 7.26 billion kilos of plastic wastes ending up in our oceans each year, some of these getting ingested by marine life, some of which ends up on our tables. Ah, yes, the circle of life.
Yet while efforts to use less plastic are commendable, the campaign should belong not only to buyers and sellers. It also needs to involve manufacturers, who use tons of single-use plastic products, such as sachets and drinking straws, for their goods.
Unilever, for example, announced last May that it would commit to make all of its packaging recyclable or biodegradable within eight years. For now, about 14 percent of plastic packaging gets recycled, it added. Government at both central and local levels will need to hold the consumer goods giant and others like it accountable for this promise.
A total ban on plastic bags would be ideal, but expanding the ban from two to five days, for starters, is an important next step Cebu City’s officials and constituents need to take.