THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said the Philippines’ dependence on sachets and single-use plastics may be reduced if the country could repurpose more solid waste materials, and open refilling stations in neighborhood stores.
The Philippines is already seeing the repurposing of plastic materials “in a kind of entrepreneurial, incubator way,” Environment Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga told reporters in Malacañang on Wednesday, Aug. 2.
“The sachets are a manifestation of our economic development. What we would like to do at this point is we would like to address the fact that this is material that needs to be repurposed somehow,” she said.
“What we need to do is to scale that up because in fact there is economic value to these plastics,” she said.
The Philippines can earn up to $780 million to $790 million per year if it could repurpose the 61,000 metric tons of solid waste the country generates daily, the DENR chief said, citing a World Bank study.
“Anything we do with this cycle will have ripple effects whether to the informal sector, whether to vendors sa markets, and of course sa large corporations that use different types of packaging,” Loyzaga said.
“What’s important is whoever is collecting needs to be given that fare wage, that protection,” she said.
The DENR is also looking at existing refilling stations for several basic commodities such as laundry detergents, shampoos, dishwashing liquids, cooking oil, and condiments, among others.
“Hopefully, that can be scaled to the level of the sari-sari stores as well. That’s what we’re trying to explore at this point,” the Environment chief said.
“It has to do with the way we generate our products, how we manage the waste from the generation of products,” she said.
“Sinisikap po natin na they will not reach our marine and coastal areas,” she added.
In his second State of the Nation Address, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that his administration’s “economic agenda cannot and will not ever be incompatible with our climate change agenda.”
He has also asked Congress to pass a law that would impose excise taxes on single-use plastics, among other measures. (ABS-CBN News)
