Legarda urged to fast-track implementation of total plastic ban

SENATE OFFICE, Manila, April 15, 2011-Even before her proposed measure is enacted into law, Senator Loren Legarda, Chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change urged the government to fast-track the implementation of total plastic bag ban, saying that the national government can set an example by prohibiting the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags in their respective offices, while local government units (LGUs) can start by creating their own laws and ordinances in their respective jurisdictions.

Legarda, who recently filed Senate Bill 2759 otherwise known as the Total Plastic Bag Ban Act that seeks to prohibit the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by groceries, supermarkets, public markets, restaurants, fast food chains, department stores, retail stores and other similar establishments nationwide.

The Senator said that there is a need for all of them to be effective models as precedent, stressing that local and chief executives’ are servants of the citizenry where they should set an example and show to our countrymen that this plastic bag ban can effectively be done in all public schools, hospitals, and government offices so the whole country will easily follow suit. 

Legarda added that there is a need to ensure that this new lifestyle and way of thinking is implemented in all households in the barangay and municipal levels where she also urged the local government units to fast-track the passage of their own versions of the total plastic bag ban.

“The City Government of Muntinlupa is now implementing the total plastic bag ban in their city while the Municipality of San Francisco in Camotes Island, Cebu has recently implemented the “no free plastic” program to force citizens to use re-usable bags,” the Senator said.

“There are numerous alternatives to non-biodegradable plastic bags. We have our baskets, bayongs, eco-bags, paper bags, cloth bags or katsa, bags made of recycled tetrapacks, and many others. We just have to be innovative and ingenious in finding substitute packaging materials or containers,” she explained. (Jason de Asis)