OpinionsEcon 101Zero-waste vs. plastic waste

Zero-waste vs. plastic waste

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Are we pursuing measures towards a zero-waste goal?

Maybe. For one, a group here in Dumaguete is promoting the use of edible straws. This University Town, led by Silliman University, Foundation University, and St. Paul University — together with other schools here, is promoting best practices to work towards zero-waste goals.

The National Solid Waste Management Commission defines zero-waste as an “advocacy that promotes the designing and managing of products and processes to avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials”.

What has happened to the City Ordinance passed in 2011 banning the use of plastic bags and Styrofoam? Are we truly ready to implement the use of biodegradable materials? Have we ever assessed the status of our creeks and rivers, seashores and even sea beds in terms of the volume of plastic wastes stuck in them? Are we aware, and bothered, that our own surroundings at home and the public places are strewn with all kinds of solid waste — plastic and other forms of unsorted garbage — are clogging our drainage systems, canals, streams and rivers? Is it even safe to use the so-called “biodegradable plastics”?

Plastic might be the most significant innovation since the invention of the wheel, and the number 0, but people, it is choking our waterways and the oceans.

As previously published, and just to remind us all plastic users, the European Union Commission in its European Strategy for Plastics in Circular Economy (Jan. 16, 2018) points out that available biodegradable plastics mostly “degrade under very specific conditions which may not always be easy to find in the natural environment, and can, thus, still cause harm to ecosystems.”

Moreover, in the Philippine context, plastic bags labeled “Biodegradable” are actually not, but are so-called ‘oxo-degradable plastics’. Such bags are even worse than traditional plastic bags in as much as they deteriorate and disintegrate into tiny pieces (microplastics) that can neither be reused nor recycled.

The EU Commission has “started work with the intention to restrict the use of oxo-plastics in the EU.”

The EU plastics strategy is part of its transition to a ‘circular economy’ as a response to necessity.

The European Union, like Dumaguete City, is facing a waste crisis. Starting this year, China has banned the importation of 24 categories of trash, and has set strict standards for plastic waste that it will continue to import. In 2015, China imported 49.6 million tons of trash from mostly-developed countries including the EU, the US, Japan, and Australia. The EU generates about 26 million tons of plastic garbage every year, more than three million tons of which would be exported to China. Ships that bring Chinese-made consumer goods to Europe would return empty to China if not for the trash that China’s recycling sector has been importing (AFP/Yahoo, Jan. 21, 2018).

China’s ban is a wake-up call for developed countries to overhaul their waste management policies in general, and their plastics policies in particular.

How about us? Pray tell me, what to do about waste management?

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Author’s email: [email protected]

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