Plastics industry laments inaction on ecology center

The country’s plastics industry has lamented that, 12 years after it was created by law, the government agency that is supposed to oversee solid waste segregation and management, and the development of a recycling market has yet to be organized.

The Philippine Plastics Industry Association Inc. (PPIA) said the National Ecology Center, mandated to be established under the Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (Republic Act No. 9003), is supposed to guide the government on steps needed to enforce waste segregation, recovery and recycling.

“In so many ways, this center will provide the scientific support for measures to keep cities and municipalities clean and environmentally friendly in terms of waste management,” said Peter Quintana, president of the PPIA, in a press statement.

The plastic ban being implemented by some local government units, Quintana said, has no scientific backing and creates new problems and inconveniences, which explains why cities abroad that tried it before have backtracked and resorted to regulating, instead of banning, plastic use.

“We hope this center is organized soonest because the plastic ban is taking its toll on the industry and on the public which has lost access to an all-weather, all-purpose material that is food safe and very convenient,” he said.

Quintana said the ban also has environmental costs since to produce one 183-gram cotton bag requires the use of 320 gallons of water. Also, to make one paper bag requires one gallon of clean water, which is all it takes to make 116 plastic bags.

He said the plastic ban is founded on nothing more than the misimpression that plastic bags cause floods.