Juvinia P. Serafin, MDM 

OIC Chief, SWMD

Tel: (02) 8539-4378 local. 124 or 125

Email: swmdco@emb.gov.ph

1535 General Alejo G. Santos Hwy
Plaridel, Bulacan 3004

+63 44 761-8085

Email: customerservice@greenantz.com

Block 6 Build 2 National Road
1 Tepaural Compound, Putatan
Muntinlupa City

09451557825

Email: hello@theplaf.com, francois@theplaf.com

Environmental Economist 
De La Salle University

Email: albert.lamberte@dlsu.edu.ph

Dasma Technopark

09171032318
Email: raquel.relleve@mksliderphilippines.com

Environmental Economist 
De La Salle University

Email: albert.lamberte@dlsu.edu.ph

The Philippines, like other developing countries, experienced an explosion in plastic waste in the 1970s, when consumer goods companies began selling products in single-use, throwaway packaging. The Republic Act 9003: Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 was supposed to be the critical legislation for the collection, disposal, transport, storage, and treatment of solid wastes in the Philippines. This law was implemented around 20 years ago and ordered dumpsites to be prohibited and converted into sanitary landfills by 2006. However, there were still 403 open dumpsites and 108 controlled dumpsites in operation by 2016. Furthermore, many dumpsites can be found near waterways, rivers, and coasts. These dumpsites have little to no infrastructure to control waste and leachate leakage into nearby water bodies. Due to under-resourced and under-funded local government units, as well as a lack of space in congested cities, there is also a scarcity of waste disposal facilities, material recovery facilities, recycling plants, and sanitary landfills (Enviliance Asia, 2022).

Source: Enviliance Asia (2022)

Plastic pollution continuance will further pose a threat to the local Philippine economies, which rely on fishing, shipping, and tourism. This pollution significantly reduces overall biodiversity, impedes shipping equipment, and deforms beaches and rivers. Other potential adverse effects include:

Source:
World Bank (2022)
Sung (2022)

Source:
Castillo & Otoma (2013)

Source:
Guevarra (2019)
Sarmiento (2018)

However, no national policy prevents these multinational companies from producing plastic packaging items, mostly made of polypropylene, that require 20-30 years to degrade. The RA 9003: Ecological Solid Waste Management Act and current municipal ordinances only executed policies that signal consumers to cease and discard plastics properly. Hence, they failed to determine the root cause of plastics, which typically come from the producers themselves.

Source:

Source:

Source: Srivastava (2014)

Source:

Recycling facilities that cost millions of dollars to construct and operate can only be profitable when a massive amount of plastic is treated daily. Therefore, small portions of plastics can make recycling non-economical and non-beneficial due to low efficiencies and high costs.

Source:

Nestle said it was committed to finding ways to keep plastics out of oceans through plastic collection and recycling programs. However, it added that sachets prevented leakage of micronutrients essential to addressing malnutrition, especially among children.

Unilever said it has a community-based sachet recovery program in the Philippines where collected sachets are converted to school chairs and cement pavers. It also pilot-ran shampoo and conditioner refilling stations this year, which it plans to scale up.

P&G referred questions to the industry group Philippine Alliance for Recycling and Materials Sustainability (PARMS) or the government’s National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC).

The bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the City of Manila to gather and recycle PET bottles in the metro. Under the MOA, clear PET plastic bottles—regardless of brand or manufacturer—deposited in contour bottle bins will be collected by Manila’s Department of Public Services and hauled by CCBPI to its PETValue recycling facility located in Gen. Trias, Cavite. This is the first project series lined up for the City of Manila.

Source: 

The World Bank supported the initiative of the Philippines where solid waste was minimized in rivers in Metro Manila, hence lowering the risk of flooding and marine litter, especially in Manila Bay by concentrating on better collection methods, community-based approaches, and offering incentives.

Source: 

Source:

10 out of the 18 cities in Metro Manila were able to obtain plastic bag regulations:

Source:

Source: 

Source:

Private sector benefits from poor implementation of waste management practices. The laxer the implementation of the laws regarding waste management and sewage disposal treatments, the lower the level of participation of the private sectors in investing in proper disposal and proper sewage treatment. With this, they save costs of not building the proper facilities for their waste disposals (Domingo & Manejar, 2021).

Source:
National Integrated Climate Change Database Information and Exchange System - NICCDIES (2020)

Source: World Bank (2022)

Source: 

“We collect mostly plastics here, and the number one type are sachets,” said Gualva, one of 17 people hired by the environment agency to help preserve the island and its forest. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) calls them “Mangrove Warriors” and pays them slightly above $8 daily.

“They have the funds to conduct research that will remove the problematic packaging,” said Sonia Mendoza, executive director of the Mother Earth Foundation, which promotes waste reduction. She suggested that refilling stations could be one way to reduce the use of single-use sachets (Lema, 2019). 

The Philippines’ solid waste law is poorly enforced, and the country does not regulate packaging manufacturing. According to a 2015 study by the University of Georgia, the country ranks third in the world for failing to deal with its plastics, with 81 percent of the country's plastic waste mismanaged.

Source:

Regarding disposal, only 4%, or 56 local government units, now use sanitary landfills (SLF), as shown in Table 1. The low compliance of local governments to establish sanitary landfills was attributed to the high cost of closing dumpsites and the need for more financial and technical assistance to implement the law. As a result, some LGUs continue to use ordinary sanitary landfills. 68 of the 946 open and controlled dumps are being prepared for closure. LGUs in Metro Manila are now using sanitary landfills. Metro Manila LGUs use the following sanitary landfills: Navotas SLF, Rizal Provincial SLF, and Pilotage SLF. Unsanitary landfills and open dumps jeopardize the land since mixing used plastic with degradable organic matter from MSW forms leachate percolation into the soil, contaminating the country's surface and groundwater.

Source: Castillo & Otoma (2013)