SOMETHING good happened recently in Congress. The House of Representatives passed a national regulation (House Bill 9147) on single-use plastic, which signifies a first step towards eradicating plastic pollution in the country.
Will senators act, too, and pass a stronger national single-use plastic regulation? This should be more aggressive, responsive and promote genuine solutions to curb plastic production and consumption.
With 190 affirmative votes, zero negative, the House of Representatives approved in the final reading House Bill 9147 on July 28. The bill sets a gradual phaseout period for different plastic products and imposes accountability to plastic producers and manufacturers. Similar bills on the regulation of single-use plastics have been filed in the Senate since 2019 but, so far, none of the bills have moved beyond the Committee level.
The 2020 data from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources – Environmental Management Bureau revealed that 488 local government units have ordinances banning single-use plastics. With this, the stand of the local government against plastic pollution is evident.
According to the report “Plastic & Health: The Hidden Cost of a Plastic Planet, “…roughly two-thirds of all plastic ever produced has been released into the environment and remains there in some form — as debris in the oceans, as micro- or nanoparticles in air and agricultural soils, as microfibers in water supplies, or as microparticles in the human body.” Once in the environment, plastics slowly fragments into smaller particles where they contaminate the air, water, and soil, accumulate in food chains, and release toxic additives or concentrate additional toxic chemicals in the environment.
Also, according to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternative report “Plastics Exposed”, each day, the country produces around “164 million pieces of sachets”, “48 million shopping bags” and “45.2 million pieces” of so called “plastic labo bag”. Single-use plastics, which are designed for the dump or for the fire, clearly have no place in an environment designed for perpetual recycling of resources that will truly promote and sustain life and health of this planet’s inhabitants. In view of this, the only way to deal with single-use plastics is to phase them all out.
We only have a few weeks left in the legislative calendar and with the 2022 national elections fast approaching, we believe that now is the right time to pass the national regulation on single use plastics. With the increasing plastic consumption due to the pandemic, plastic waste is estimated to increase by 300 percent. Our environment and communities cannot afford to go back to start with this bill in the new Congress.
