Making do without plastic On a weekend afternoon at the Festival Mall in Alabang, Muntinlupa, shoppers adjust to a small, but basic, change in their routine. City Ordinance 10-109 banning the use of plastic bags has taken effect earlier that week.
Shoppers have to put their purchases in the bags they have brought from home or buy reusable bags that don’t come cheap. Supermarket customers have the option of having their goods put in boxes.
Buyers and sellers alike cope with the change in varying degrees of success. The ban on plastic bags is not a novel concept. More advanced countries, especially European ones, have been practicing it for years.
Singapore has its bring-your-own-bag day. Generally, shoppers have to pay for plastic bags if they insist on using them. The objective is to lessen the amount of plastic used and thrown into the trash. Plastics are non-biodegradable and emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The high level of greenhouse gases, in turn, is responsible for global warming and the resulting climate change. While the Philippines is a low carbon emitter compared to other countries, the widespread use of plastic materials still do us immediate harm. Our mountains of trash, for instance, contain plastics that block our waterways and worsen the flooding that we have to contend with. *** A sheet of paper bearing salient points of the ordinance is printed in color, laminated and put on display at the entrance of a clothing store at the mall.
“Where do I put my shirt if I decide to buy one from you?” I ask. “Your bag is big, ma’am,” says the male store clerk, in Tagalog. “Surely it will fit there.” I next talk to a bookstore cashier. “Oh we just don’t wrap purchases of our customers anymore,” she says, a bit apologetically. She points to a man who has just bought three ball point pens. “See? We just hand him the receipt and he puts the pens in his pocket.” I try to be insistent.
What if I buy a dozen notebooks, I tell her, and I’m only carrying a purse? The bookstore clerk pulls out a big, red fishnet bag from underneath her seat. “Then you can get this bag for only P65. The great thing is that you can use it every time you shop.” All the plastic bags in the fiery red that the bookstore is known for are still stacked on shelves below the cashier’s wrapping area. I wonder how the store would get rid of those. “Can’t you really spare me a plastic bag? I don’t want to buy this fishnet thing,” I ask, pointing to the stack of unused plastics. The girl starts being impatient. “Ma’am, if I do that, my manager will be penalized.” I am led next to a kiosk selling branded chicharon—by my nose, more than by any strategic plan on how to work the mall.
I saw that the cooked stuff was packed and sealed in a transparent plastic container. I ask the vendor what will happen if I decide to buy: would he pry open the seal and transfer the chicharon to a paper bag? He smiles. “Of course not. The freshness will go away. This kind of plastic is allowed,” he volunteers, pointing to the transparent container. I am not a woman of science and neither, I suspect, is he, so I decide against asking him to explain why this particular kind of plastic was “allowed.”
However, instead of putting the purchased chicharon in a sando bag upon purchase, he put it inside a brown paper bag. Residents of Muntinlupa City had one year to prepare themselves for the transition. The ordinance was passed in January of 2010, when it was also determined that the local law would be implemented January 18 this year. It appeared to me, too, that sellers in the mall had been briefed well by their employers about the ban.
Well, almost all of them. I approached the take-out countcfber of a popular local fastfood chain and asked where they would put my food if I decide to have it taken out. “In a plastic bag, of course,” beamed the takeout crew, a short, happy-looking young man. I was perplexed. “But won’t you charge me extra for the plastic bag? Aren’t they banned in this city?” Mr. Jolly seemed amused at my sense of compliance.
He said, “Sa iba lang ho bawal yang plastic na yan. Dito sa amin, pwedeng pwede (It’s only others than ban plastic bags. Here with us, they’re okay).” Roselyn, a thirty something working mom who lives in Barangay Alabang, says she was not aware of the one-year “adjustment/phaseout” period given to residents and businesses to get used to the idea. “But of course, I understand what it is for, so I don’t mind. I am only too happy to comply.”
She worries though how other residents of the city would react to the ordinance if it were suddenly sprung upon them and they don’t know exactly why such is being done. “I have not been to the public market recently but my mother has, just this morning, and she came back with colored sando bags containing her purchases,” she adds.
Indeed, the ban may have been easier to implement in the malls because businesses generally want to show that they are earth-friendly and law-abiding. But what about those who have become so used to using plastics? She wonders, for instance, how sellers of meat and fish in the wet market can adjust to the ordinance. Where will they put their sold goods?
They cannot use the permitted kind of plastic, or a special type of paper, which would likely be more expensive. “I think the local government needs to work harder on alternatives for these very small, mom-and-pop businesses, as well as for ordinary folk who use plastics to gather their kitchen trash, not out of apathy to the environment but out of habit.”
*** At Festival, the change is apparent by the end of the first week of the implementation of the ban. More people are carrying paper bags and even look proud doing so. Those pushing carts from the grocery into the parking lot use boxes and bags as well.
We have no idea what goes on in areas that are less informed. Education thus needs to be sustained, especially since the ban is not a fad or passing fancy but a long-term attempt to change people’s perception and habits.
It is easy to announce the implementation of a ban but the tougher gauge—whether people understand what it is for and whether they comply because they understand despite the inconvenience of changing their habits —is not as easily available. The local government also has to make sure that businesses comply regardless of their profitability, tax contribution to the city and owners’ connections that may embolden them to think they are beyond the reach of the ordinance.
Finally, while the present crop of officials at city hall deserve credit for their political will in implementing the ban, in no way should they act as though they had a copyright to this great initiative.
In fact, the challenge is how to maintain the zeal and consistency in influencing the public’s habits across different administrations, over time.
Then again, this is only Muntinlupa. I wonder whether other cities and municipalities are coming up with a similarly worthy move one of these days.
This was written by adellechua@gmail.com
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I just wanna quote that last phrase in RED, before Muntinlupa. Paete, Laguna implemented the total banning of plastic bag usage.
I actually debated to one of the Councilor, that banning of plastic is not gonna really help. WHY?
There are some instances that we really need to use plastic bags like for example, buying a fresh meat from the wet market, buying tofu's etc. etc.
So, getting these stuffs will be needing plastic bags because this products are most of the time are fresh / wet.
So, on that case, banning of plastic is already not effective. So this is just another Publicity stunt for them. We call it "Pogi Points".
Proper waste disposal and Proper waste segregation is the answer, not banning the usage of plastic bags.
If we can properly dispose it, then we can recycle it.. That's the answer. I hope these "politicians" will be using their heads the next time they implement a ruling / ordinances.
RECYCLING IS THE ANSWER!!!!!
a cool discussion from MCP
Banning of plastics in Muntinlupa
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