I AM really glad that our city is trying its best to find ways on how to care for the environment. For one I have been seeing in the feeds of my social media accounts that there are concrete plans to ban the use of plastics starting January 2019. This initiative aims to reduce the plastic waste and declog the drainage, which causes the flooding in the city. In connection to this initiative, I have also heard that the leaders in the city hall planned to model this behavior and be the first one to implement it in their quarters. Although I am wondering how it went out.
In the same manner, I have also been observing how the Central Student Government of Xavier Ateneo through their directorate submitted a proposition to ban the use of plastic straws to be used by the various food and beverage provider of the school. This initiative is in line with the submitted bill of Sen. Risa Hontiveros to have a nationwide ban of a single-use plastic straw because most of these end up in land fills and in bodies of water.
While admittedly Sen Hontiveros and some environmentalists claim that the banning of plastic straws can affect at a minimal extent to the garbage problem of our country, the target here is a behavioral change to refrain from using plastics and consider environmentally healthy alternatives.
Like any environmental initiatives, however, I am hoping that our community through a strong support from our government and various organizational leaders to push through and monitor the implementation of these initiatives. We do not want a one time big time type of initiative that eventually dies out because of the lack of follow-up or even interest coming from the community members.
While these initiatives are laudable, I somehow foresee some roadblocks, which could affect their successful implementation. Like any initiative, it always comes with a cost. One of the things that I can anticipate to have is the reaction of people especially if it will affect their convenience. The final price of the product includes the costing for a straw or a plastic. But let us move further from our sight of convenience in the short term to the long term and sustainable effects of this small sacrifice for the sake of our environment. With all the atrocities we are experiencing in our environment including the reality of climate change, I am hoping that this little sacrifice would not be too much as compared to the wonders it can do to our environment.
In the second encyclical of Pope Francis, “Laudato Si, On Care of Our Common Home”, the people are encouraged to have a unified call for a concerted and unified action with all sectors of the community so that concrete and more innovative action be made to help alleviate our environmental concerns. More than our pursuit for development, may our leaders and community members be more enlightened to focus on promoting the welfare of our environment as a priority and not just something secondary.
Like our home, we should treat our environment with love and care. Likewise, we need to make sure that everyone is accountable to each other’s action by empowering individuals to have a role and responsibility to preserve the goodness with our nature. If not, the very good initiatives that we have now will just be put to waste.