The floods caused by Storm “Ondoy” focused national attention on squatters living on the banks of major waterways and on the garbage clogging Metro Manila’s drainage systems. But the real culprit is plastic waste.

Very few government officials enforce the law obliging everybody to segregate biodegradable waste from non-biodegradable garbage. In Metro Manila and in some cities in the provinces, garbage, mostly plastic, is disposed of in landfills. But landfills are not easy to find. Besides, land is better used for housing projects and agricultural production. Thus, uncollected garbage eventually find their way into waterways, clogging them and thus causing floods when heavy rains fall.

According to news reports, more than 100 million tons of plastic is being produced worldwide, and that plastic takes up to 1,000 years to decompose.

What can be done about plastic?

In India, dirty plastic waste is used as binders in road construction and reportedly they help render roads pothole-free.

A University of Toronto chemist, Doctor James Guillet, invented in 1971 a kind of plastic that decomposes within a reasonable time for as long as it is exposed to direct sunlight. By adding starch, plastic becomes biodegradable. When disposed of in landfills, it is attacked by bacteria that feed on starch. The bacteria break the plastic down into tiny particles that disappear harmlessly into the soil.

But developed countries get rid of their waste materials by simply exporting them to countries willing to take them for “recycling.” This is the key loophole in the Basel Convention, which prohibits the exportation of waste materials to other countries.

According to Greenpeace, the Philippines is the one country in Asia that has banned import, storage or transport of all nuclear or toxic waste. The pretext of “recycling” is used to circumvent these controls.

Greenpeace was able to document the shipment of more than 64,000 tons of toxic waste to the Philippines—including 7,000 tons of waste plastic—between 1990 and 1993.

To solve the problems caused by plastic materials in our environment, I recommend that local plastic manufacturers or “recyclers” be compelled by law to buy back all used plastic products equivalent to the volume they sell, which they themselves may recycle. The advantages are:

1. This would drastically reduce the volume of used plastic in garbage dumps or drainage systems, without cutting much into the manufacturers’ profits;

2. It will make plastic manufacturers more responsible corporate citizens;

3. People will still enjoy the convenience of using plastic;

4. The poor who make a living out of collecting and selling used plastic will have a ready market;

5. Most importantly, our environment will be made cleaner.

—AMADO F. CABAERO,
amacabsenior1@yahoo.com