CAMARINES Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte on Monday asked the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to strictly implement the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Law that requires manufacturers or producers, along with their distributors and retailers, to find ways of getting rid of their products in a more responsible and proper manner after these goods have been bought and used by the public.
At the same time, Villafuerte said the department must link up with international institutions in checking pervasive plastic pollution.
Villafuerte lauded the Marcos administration’s recent partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF) on mobilizing communities behind the protection of the blue carbon ecosystem and the reduction of plastic pollution.
“The EPR Law will mean nothing in our country’s green quest for a circular economy unless the DENR implements it in a more stringent manner in order to increase compliance by big companies with its mandate for them to sign up and commit to the sustainable way of disposing of their wastes, especially of single-use plastics,” Villafuerte said.
Both agreements on environmental protection were signed by DENR Secretary Ma. Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga, on behalf of the Philippines, and WEF Center for Nature and Climate managing director Neo Gim Huay, for the Geneva-based organization, on the sidelines of last year’s 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Huay said the two agreements cover the efforts of both the Marcos administration and the WEF on catalyzing “a lot more communities, initiatives, public policy and corporate involvement in protecting our ecosystems,” particularly on restoring the blue carbon ecosystem and addressing plastic pollution.
“However,” said Villafuerte, “a better way for the DENR to implement this new partnership—and help arrest the unbridled plastic pollution in the country in a more effective manner—is by taking aggressive steps to reverse the low compliance by big companies with the EPR Law of 2022 that holds them responsible for getting rid of or recycling their products’ plastic packaging wastes after these have been sold to and used by consumers.”
“It behooves the DENR to ensure the full implementation of the EPR Law in support of the government goal of advancing a circular economy and mitigating the deleterious impact of climate change,” Villafuerte, a former governor and a lead author of the EPR Law, said.
He said that such a better approach to sustainable management of solid wastes also jibes with President Marcos’ new nationwide clean-up initiative “Kalinisan sa Bagong Pilipinas,” which was launched last January with the support of barangay and youth officials across the country.