Addressing Ph plastic waste plague
In a joint report entitled Stemming the tide: Land-based strategies for a plastic-free ocean, the Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, the Philippines, together with China, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, has been tagged as a major plastic waste polluter. Our country ranks third in the world on this list of infamy.
Critically, our research found that more than half of the plastic leaking into the ocean comes from just five countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. As an immediate priority, we believe there is an opportunity to reduce plastic-waste leakage by 65 percent in these five countries—resulting in a 45 percent reduction globally—through measures including closing leakage points within the collection system, increasing waste-collection rates, using a variety of technologies to treat waste, and manually sorting high-value plastic waste. (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainabilityand-resource-productivity/our-insights/ saving-the-ocean-from-plastic-waste )
To address the plastic waste plague that has spread to our forests, mountains, farmlands, urban communities and to many of our country’s rivers, lakes, and seas it has become urgently necessary for the enactment of a law designed to create, instill, and sustain the habit of caring for the environment and keeping it free from plastic wastes.
This bill identifies and prohibits the following acts:
1. the release of unrecoverable plastic and rubber balloons into the air;
2. the sale and distribution of single-use plastic at retail and wholesale business establishments;
3. the throwing or disposal of cigarette butts, any form of plastic waste or matter, and non-biodegradable substances into the sea and other bodies of water, whether natural or man-made, including sewerage canals of any form; and
4. sale of personal care products, cosmetics, detergents, oil-based products, and other products containing microbeads.
This bill imposes a Plastic Bags Deterrence Fee of at least twenty pesos (P20.00) per reusable plastic bag for deterrence and discouragement purposes at point-of-sale transactions at all retail purchase outlets nationwide. Such fees charged and collected shall be remitted to the National Treasury and allocated as a special purpose fund for the implementation of plastic waste management programs by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and local government units. The fee shall be adjusted for inflation by the Department of Trade and Industry and rounded off to the nearest peso.
This bill penalizes serious and gross negligence by local government units on the proper collection of disposed plastic wastes and garbage on public and private roads within their respective jurisdictions.
Gross negligence of officials at the barangay, municipal, city, provincial, and national levels of the responsibility to properly collect and dispose of garbage, especially those along or in waterways and in coastal areas, shall constitute probable cause for the Office of the Ombudsman to motu proprio:
1. immediately suspend such officials for six (6) months without pay, allowances, and any other kind of remuneration from public funds; and
2. file criminal and administrative charges to remove and ban from the same officials from holding any public office for ten (10) years.
The Ombudsman order of preventive suspension shall be immediately enforceable and be subject to review and/or the issuance of any temporary restraining order only by the Sandiganbayan and the Supreme Court.
Any Filipino citizen of voting age convicted of any of the prohibited acts shall lose the right to vote and to be a candidate in the two national and local elections to be held after the date of his or her conviction.