An environmental group has found an ingenious way of driving home its urgent message on the prevalence of single-use plastics in the country.
The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives said that one year’s worth of sachet use in the country can cover the entire Metro Manila one foot deep in plastic waste.
According to the group, Filipinos use more than 163 million plastic sachet packets, 48 million sando bags and 45 million "labo" bags (thin plastic bags used in wet markets) in one day.
So if Filipinos discarded 163 million plastic sachet packets a year, and assuming each packet were 5cm x 6cm in size and 1mm in thickness, they can be arranged side by side and stacked 312 times—around 12 inches high—covering an area equivalent to the entire National Capital Region.
The numbers are an extrapolation of data collected from household waste assessments and brand audits in six cities (Quezon City, Navotas City, Malabon City, City of San Fernando in Pampanga, Batangas City, Tacloban City) and seven municipalities in Nueva Vizcaya—over a five-year period.
The report also found that cities and municipalities deal with a greater number of branded plastic waste—consumer products marketed in sachets—than unbranded waste.
Ten companies are responsible for 60 percent, and four multinational companies are responsible for 36 percent, of all branded waste collected in the sample sites.
Froilan Grates, GAIA’s executive director for Asia Pacific, says addressing the issue is a shared responsibility—from the national government to local governments, communities and individual households.
The national government can regulate the use of plastic bags, LGUs can manage up to 80 percent of the waste through composting and recycling, corporations can stop packaging their products in single-use plastics.
Individuals, despite the prevalent “tingi” mentality, can purchase products in bulk and rely less on plastic bags.
Perhaps it is difficult to imagine the adverse consequences of plastic waste on a hot summer day. It is also very easy to continue with habits and mindsets we have had all our lives.
But when the rainy season comes, and plastic waste blocks the waterways, causing flooding and untold damage to people and property, that is when we remember anew that we cause part of the problem in our own, seemingly insignificant ways.
To counter this, it is high time we challenged our habits of convenience, so we can effect part of the solution in our own spheres.
