Plastic bag ban in schools pressed
Waste and pollution watchdog EcoWaste Coalition on Friday urged education authorities to consider banning the use of disposable plastic bags and polystyrene products in school premises to minimize waste and promote zero waste as a new school year opens.
EcoWaste Coalition Zero Waste Program Officer Christina Vergara said that the Department of Education (DepEd) “has a clear task under the law to strengthen the integration of environmental concerns in school curricula at all levels, with particular emphasis on the theory and practice of waste management principles like waste minimization, among others,” referring to Section 56 of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 or Republic Act 9003.
“Disposable plastic bags and polystyrene are highly problematic in terms of their management, making them non-environmentally acceptable,” Vergara said.
“They usually end up as residual wastes with nowhere to go but the dumps, adding to the already voluminous polluting garbage there,” she added.
EcoWaste has observed that many local governments have seen the importance of waste minimization by banning or, at least, regulating the use of disposable plastic bags and polystyrene.
“These LGUs are correct, since after you have undertaken composting and recycling, you usually find yourself wondering how you would ecologically deal with plastic bags and polystyrene,” Vergara said.
Vergara noted “while pro-plastics say these products can be recycled, the truth is their recycling rates are very low.”
Also, she added that “plastic bags and polystyrene cannot truly be recycled back to their original form, rather they can only be downcycled into products that are of low quality.”
DLSU-D example De La Salle University (DLSU) – Dasmarinas, Cavite has been reaping the benefits of being plastic bag-free since 2011 and styrofoam-free since 2005.
“We have tremendously reduced the amount of residual wastes in the campus, lessen our operational expenses related to waste management, and imbued good values that led to a change in behavior toward good stewardship among our students and school personnel,” said Marlon Pereja, Director of Environmental Resource Management Center of DLSU-Dasmarinas.
Pereja added that “the values and practice of ecological stewardship, which should start at home, should be strengthened in the school, if we are to produce citizens that truly care for the environment.”
Some of the schools which have adopted policies banning disposable plastic bags and polystyrene aside from DLSU-Dasmariñas are Cong. R.A. Calalay Memorial Elementary School in San Francisco del Monte, Quezon City, St. Scholastica’s College in San Fernando City, Pampanga and all public and private schools in Batangas City, Batangas.
Waste audit conducted by EcoWaste Coalition, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Greenpeace, and Mother Earth Foundation in the Manila Bay last year found that among plastic wastes (which topped the list of the bay’s marine debris at 61.9 percent ), plastic bags were pegged at 23.2 percent and polystyrene debris at 7.5 percent.