AN INTERNATIONAL organization dedicated to ocean preservation disagrees with a report that points to the Philippines as the source of one-third of the world's plastic waste that ends up in the oceans, but admits that the country has a solid waste management problem that contributes a sizable amount of pollutants to the waters—pollutants that kill marine life and also pose risks to human health.
The group also warned about the consequences of not acting, with the volume of solid waste to grow as the population rapidly increases by a projected 25 million people in a little over two decades.
Liza Osorio, acting vice president of Oceana Philippines, said the report published by the scientific online publication Our World in Data in May 2021 that the Philippines is responsible for one-third of the plastics that wind up in the ocean, is inaccurate and far from the data that most environmental groups follow.
Osorio, a lawyer, added that a separate study by Ocean Conservancy that also puts the Philippines and other Asian countries in a bad light as top waste contributors to the oceans was retracted on July 10, 2022, seven years after the publication of the report.
Overproduction
While she agreed on the concerning amount of plastic garbage around the world, Osorio said the research ignored the overproduction of plastic from Global North countries, which even the United States-based Ocean Conservancy now agrees with.
The Global North encompasses the rich and powerful regions such as North America, Europe and Australia.
However, Osorio said that on an individual level, the Philippines still needs to improve its waste management as she considers it concerning.
“We have poor waste management practices. Even though we throw it (waste) away and we segregate at our houses, it ends up in the dumpsites that are not managed properly and these are usually found in waterways and coastlines," Osorio told SunStar Cebu on June 6, 2023, as the Philippines celebrated Environment Month.
Osorio also said the country’s efforts to eliminate the use of single-use plastics, which contribute largely to the solid waste that the country produces, is not given much effort.
Open dumpsites
She said the major source of leaked garbage after collection is open dumpsites which are typically near waterways. When solid waste reaches the bodies of water, it is called marine debris.
Section 37 of Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, prohibits the operation of dumpsites.
"No open dumps shall be established and operated, nor any practice or disposal of solid waste by any person," the law states.
However, there are still a number of dumpsites operating in the country. There are only a few sanitary landfills in existence, the only kind of disposal facility permitted by law.
Sanitary landfill
Sanitary landfills are a sort of disposal site where waste is kept away from the surrounding area. Typically, this is done by burying the trash in a sizable pit that is walled with clay or thick plastic. To stop waste-generated liquids from seeping into the ground, it frequently includes a network of pipelines.
According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), 233 open dumpsites were still operating in the country as of January 2021.
The regions with the most number of open dumpsites are Western Visayas with 48 dumpsites, Mimaropa with 35, Central Visayas with 27, Bicol Region with 23, and Davao Region with 20.
Meanwhile, there are already 189 established sanitary landfills in the country.
Solid waste generation
Citing the audit report issued by the Commission on Audit last May 2 about the government’s solid waste management implementation, Osorio said the country generated 16.63 million metric tons of solid waste in 2020.
This was an 83 percent increase from the 9.07 million metric tons of solid waste generated in the country in 2000.
This figure is projected to increase steadily in the next two decades with the rapid increase in population, economic growth and industrialization, she said.
The population of the Philippines was 117,419,140 as of July 18, 2023, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.
The population of the country is expected to reach 142 million by 2045, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The PSA said this equates to 49 million people added to the country's population between 2010 and 2045, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of 1.21 percent.
In 2021, the average Filipino generated 0.4 kilos, or close to half a kilo, of solid waste every day, according to the DENR.
Marine debris
According to Osorio, around the world, there are around 14 million tons of plastic added to the plastic waste in the oceans every year, with 80 percent or 11.2 million tons being marine debris that goes deep down and the rest remaining on the surface water.
"Poor management practices in the country because this is really the root cause of plastic leakage in the country that ends up as marine plastic debris," she said.
Marine debris, often known as marine litter, is human-made trash that has been intentionally or unintentionally dumped into a sea or ocean. Floating maritime debris tends to build near the centers of gyres and along coastlines, where it frequently washes ashore and becomes known as beach litter or tidewrack.
She said the Philippines contributes around 0.25 up to 0.75 metric tons of marine plastics every year.
"If we think about it, we contribute barely one percent or less than one percent of the total marine plastics. That is the data we rely on," she said.
Injures and kills
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States, marine debris injures and kills marine life. It also interferes with navigation safety and poses a threat to human health.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), microplastics from marine debris have been found in tap water, salt and other drinks, which are present in all samples collected in the world's oceans.
It said the chemicals used in the production of plastic products are known to be carcinogenic and to affect the body's endocrine system, causing developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune issues in both humans and wildlife.
IUCN also said marine debris is consumed by marine species. These contaminants enter their digestive systems and accumulate in the food web over time.
The transfer of pollutants between marine organisms and people via seafood consumption has been identified as a health risk.
Lack of management
"You tend to ask 'Why are there many plastics in the oceans? Do we necessarily throw our garbage there?' But no, it really is because our solid waste management, landfills and dumpsites are not managed properly, and we are not managing plastics well," she said.
Osorio said aside from managing solid waste, the country also needs to work on its extreme usage of single-use plastics.
According to her, a person uses a single plastic for an average of only 12 minutes and immediately throws it away.
"In fact, there is a study that says that we generated a total of 164 million plastic sachets, 45.2 million plastic labo or thin-film bags, and 48 million shopping bags daily," she said.
Single-use plastics
Osorio hopes the National Government will take steps to eliminate the usage of single-use plastics, such as by using alternative shopping bags.
Republic Act 11898, or the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Act of 2022, requires large-scale companies to establish a mechanism for the recovery of their plastic packaging.
Osorio believes that big companies have the burden to collect the plastics; however, she said "the law is not fully implemented yet by these billion-dollar companies, but on a staggered basis.”
She said the problem with the EPR Act is that this does not cover micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) but only the large companies.
"This is not the silver bullet. This is not the answer to our problems, but it can be part of the solution as well, if it is done and fully implemented properly and efficiently," she said.
She believes that the problem of plastic waste can be ended by stopping the use of single-use plastics, which can be started by banning the unnecessary single-use plastics, including drinking straws, coffee stirrers, plastic utensils, thin-film shopping bags, styrofoams, water bottles and plastic cups.
Not enough
Osorio lauded the initiatives of local government units (LGUs) to ban single-use plastics; however, she believes this should be implemented at the national level.
"The problem is not having a national policy, which is supposed to be done by the National Waste Commission, headed by the DENR, to set these national guidelines," she said.
"There are variations of these local ordinances, these local initiatives. They are not the same," she added.
Citing data from the DENR, she said only 315 LGUs in the country implement an initiative against the use of single-use plastic; however, it is not uniform.
"There are different forms of implementation. There are two days in a week, one day in a week," she said, adding that implementing it as a national policy will encourage more LGUs.
According to the PSA, there were 33 highly urbanized cities, 108 component cities, five independent component cities and 1,488 municipalities that comprised the LGUs in the country, as of 2020.