Stirring awareness to warn the people of the tremendous plastic waste the country disposes at an alarming 61,000 metric tons or approximately 2.7 million metric tons annually, environment and natural resources secretary Maria Antonia Yulo Loyzaga declared in her speech during the earth day celebration.
A great volume of plastic waste are disposed to dumpsites and landfills, rivers and water supply systems instead of being put to recyclable and reusable facilities, the secretary further explained. About twenty percent of plastic waste goes down to our oceans which poses danger to marine life that we eat.
In the war against plastic pollution, everyone must take responsibility to minimize the use of plastic and ensure its proper disposal. Campaigns for waste segregation at source is a good step. The segregation must emanate from the household and market places.
Recyclable and reusable materials are supposed to be brought to materials recovery facilities at the barangay level, to be collected by junk buyers and resellers. Unfortunately, segregated waste at source are often collected by garbage trucks that puts together what had been segregated. This could be due to lack of garbage trucks of each local government unit that doing separate rounds for every kind of waste is too costly.
But the gamut of the problem could be traced from plastic manufacturers that had replaced organic food containers. Where before, people would bring their own basket that are made of bamboo, rattan or nipa leaves, people are now dependent on plastic bags that are readily available and provided by market vendors. Indeed, we are on a tough war for earth.
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