MANILA, Philippines — Ready or not, Quezon City shoppers have bid adieu to plastic bags.
Since the start of the year, customers have been unable to avail of plastic bags at Type 1 retailers like supermarkets, department stores and pharmacies that used to provide bags for a P2 fee under a 2012 city ordinance.
An amendment to that ordinance passed in October last year, however, instituted a total ban on plastic bags, now in full swing despite complaints that the local government did not provide enough time for residents and business owners to adequately prepare for it.
“We weren’t that prepared because we were only told of the ban about a week before its effectivity,” said Lai Santos, a supervisor of cashiers and baggers at a large supermarket. “It was a big adjustment and we expected there would be lots of complaints.”
It was the same story at another supermarket in the city, where cashiering supervisor Janica Valencia said they, too, were informed only a week before the end of 2019.
They had to move quickly to put up signage””as required by the ordinance””that advised shoppers of the ban and encouraged them to bring their own ecobags. She also had to ensure they had a sufficient supply of paper bags, which were allowed for now but would also be banned in 2021.“Some of our customers still preferred using plastic bags especially for wet products, or they couldn’t afford to buy ecobags,” Valencia said. “So some were angry at first about the ban. There were some who were shouting, ”˜Why aren’t there plastic bags?’”
She added that they had tried to conduct a pilot test of the ban before the effectivity date, but because they were informed only in December””the peak season for grocery stores””the idea was ultimately abandoned.
Pep talk
Santos, on the other hand, said they gave cashiers and baggers a pep talk on how to handle the inevitable complaints from customers.
There were some shoppers, she added, who had accused them of implementing the ban to promote the sale of their in-house ecobags.
“When we say it’s a city ordinance, and its purpose is to save the environment, then they understand,”she said. “But some of them really are just surprised by the ban.”
Quezon City Environmental Protection and Waste Management Department officer Vincent Vanarao told the Inquirer that in the meantime, they were on “purely observation”mode and had yet to deputize enforcers to issue tickets to violators.
However, he said that based on inspections, establishments had so far been compliant.
“Actually, it was the retailers who clamored for a ban on plastic bags,” he added. “So their reception to the ordinance has been OK.”
Councilor Dorothy Delarmente, the ordinance’s author, previously said the city government had proposed an increase in the fee for plastic bags before retailers suggested the total ban.
The P2 fee had gone into a “Green Fund” that the city was currently collecting from retailers. Vanarao said they expected it to total about P300 million, which would go into a trust fund for environment-related projects.