Metrowide plastic ban in place by 2013 - MMDA

[ghosthunter]

A simple example...

My friend bought a couple of burger meal combos with drinks for take-out. Due to the ban on plastic bags, everything was bagged in paper bags. Due to the cold drinks, the softdrink cups were wet and the drips made the paper bag wet and eventually tore through, spilling out the bag's contents onto the floor.

So much for progress in the simple shopping bag. One step forward, two steps back.

Perfect example of the "Pinoy" way of doing things. Lack of discipline from the "masa" throwing out garbage into the esteros and rivers? Ban it! ... except that it does not really solve the first problem of the poor people dumping garbage in the esteros and rivers, does it?

[reactor]

ang nakakaasar lang sa drive thru bawal daw plastic kaya wala straw pero yung lagayan ng drinks plastic naman hahaha nakakalito

[crazy_boy]

ang nakakaasar lang sa drive thru bawal daw plastic kaya wala straw pero yung lagayan ng drinks plastic naman hahaha nakakalito

sa Ortigas ganito. happened to me na several times, nag drive thru tapos order ng Coke float. wala daw straw kasi friday :hammer: dapat bumili ng paper straw yung fast food chain. pero useless parin paper straw. after 30 mins, saggy na

[ghosthunter]

Paper is no better for the environment – plastics industry official
GMA News OnlineGMA News Online – 21 hours ago

Contrary to popular belief, paper is no friendlier to the environment than plastic, according to Crispian Lao, president and spokesperson of the Philippine Plastics Industry Association.

“One ton of paper requires the cutting of 17 trees; none is cut for plastic. One supermarket paper bag uses one gallon of clean water, which is all that is needed to make 116 plastic bags. Paper uses as much as five times more energy than a comparable plastic production,” Lao explained in a March 8 statement.

The statement criticized the ban on plastics, saying it has raised bigger environmental issues and negatively affected the labor sector.

"[The plastics ban] has severely affected the industry," Lao told GMA News Online in a telephone interview Friday.

"We're not too much concerned with income, but employment... Twenty to forty percent of the sector is affected, and we are trying to keep them employed on a rotation basis," he said.

The statement also claimed that plastic has been “demonized,” giving people the idea that paper is better for the environment.

“It is not. This is the reason developed countries are taking a balanced approach. People are given a choice between plastic and paper because both are needed, and have their pros and cons,” Lao said.

He claimed that a ban on plastic is not the solution to the country’s flood problem, saying “… floods during typhoons Ondoy, Pedring, and Sendong were caused not by plastic but by global warming, which has generated more violent typhoons and unusually heavy rainfall.”

“All this misimpression started with simple floods, and it was very convenient to blame plastic because it was the most visible. But… we have poor drainage systems. And the plastic is there because we refuse to segregate. We must segregate and recycle. The solution is that simple,” he added.

Lao also highlighted the advantages of using plastic products over paper, saying that aside from being able to carry a heavier load, plastic bags can also carry both dry and wet contents.

“All we need to do is to be responsible users and disposers of plastic. To ban it is to deny ourselves, unnecessarily, a ready convenience in favor of paper that causes new problems for us,” he said.

However, Greenpeace toxics campaigner Francis Dela Cruz said in a separate interview Friday with GMA News Online that it is important to consider a “life cycle analysis” when measuring the environmental impacts of plastic and paper.

“If it’s just plastics manufacturing, they have a point,” Dela Cruz admitted.

“Pero saan nagpupunta ang plastic pagkatapos gamitin? If it’s not recycled or downcycled, it pollutes the ground. Paper degrades, the earth can take it back, it’s organic… ‘Yung plastic, nabaon na tayo lahat, nabulok na tayo lahat… ‘yung plastic andyan pa rin,” he said.

Dela Cruz agreed that responsible use and disposal of plastics can help lessen their environmental impact, but that plastics manufacturers “have to show the goods for it.”

Manufacturers “have to have a recovery program, a take-back program,” he said and explained that most recycling efforts are currently made by informal wastepickers.

Ultimately, the problem is “not an environment issue, it’s a labor issue,” according to the Greenpeace campaigner.

“It’s about industry. I’m not against creating employment opportunities, but to say ‘let’s get employment now, and let’s trash the future…’ I don’t think that’s fair… There’s a better way of creating industry,” Dela Cruz added. — VS, GMA News

SOURCE: Paper is no better for the environment

[yebo]

the majority of pulp for paper manufacturing come from trees grown in tree farms, not from forests. the rest come from recycled paper and trimmings from the wood industry (lumber and furniture manufacturing wastes). so the argument that paper is bad because it is made from trees is wrong since it does not affect the trees in the forests.

there was a time when people used bayongs and baskets to the market. supermarkets also used the cartons that their goods came in to package what their customers bought. i think doing that again would greatly reduce the need for plastics. nabuhay naman nuon na hindi gumagamit ng plastic, kaya din yun ngayon.

also, if you can carry it with your 2 hands why would you need a bag (plastic or paper)? maarte lang naman kasi gusto pa minsan yung malaking plastic bag e kaya naman hawakan na lang. meron pa nga ako nakasabay sa wilcon 1 roll ng teflon tape lang binili pina-plastic pa. i regularly refuse a plastic bag if i can carry the items i bought with my 2 hands.

[Monseratto]

The treehuggers have a point. Most of the time, plastic bags are thrown and don't get recycled. Also its not disposed off properly and end up sometime polluting and clogging waterways. Better to encourage people to use those green reusable supermarket bags or those old bayongs instead.

[ghosthunter]

So how can we buy some fresh meat, chicken or fish? ... wrap it in paper bags? If I buy a quarter kilo of ground pork, I would be damned if I would let someone place it in a paper bag.

To reduce waste plastic bags, just have a store policy of no plastic bags for small or single purchases. Example, places like convenience stores where most people buy one or two items only, no plastic bags will be given unless the purchase is too many to carry with hands (example buying a six bags of chips and and two cans of soda).

Its is stupid to ban plastic bags outright.

Treehuggers don't care if they cause chaos in the localized economy as long as they get their agenda to the public.

[CoDer]

So how can we buy some fresh meat, chicken or fish? ... wrap it in paper bags? If I buy a quarter kilo of ground pork, I would be damned if I would let someone place it in a paper bag.

To reduce waste plastic bags, just have a store policy of no plastic bags for small or single purchases. Example, places like convenience stores where most people buy one or two items only, no plastic bags will be given unless the purchase is too many to carry with hands (example buying a six bags of chips and and two cans of soda).

Its is stupid to ban plastic bags outright.

Treehuggers don't care if they cause chaos in the localized economy as long as they get their agenda to the public.

It was stupid indeed.

[yebo]

maybe i'm too much older than you guys because i do remember the days when meat, chicken and fish were wrapped in paper or paper bags at the wet markets. they use the glossy paper from magazines for making the bags. also they have the meat and chicken hanging from hooks so that much of the blood has dripped and does not get the paper too wet. (in the supermarkets they used paper bags made from "wax paper" for these items.) still in the wet markets, for the "dry" items like vegetables, dried fish, tinapa, mongo, salt, etc. they used ordinary newspaper rolled into a conical shape (imagine the packaging of a cornetto ice cream) or folded and pasted into an envelope using "gawgaw". i had an aunt who used to augment her public teacher's salary by making paper bags from newspapers and sold those to the market vendors. that was until the plastic bags came along, and that was not too long ago as she was still making those paper bags in the early 1980s.

just sharing to you young folks who never experienced this, not arguing. i'm just saying that we did it before, we can still do it now.

[ghosthunter]

maybe i'm too much older than you guys because i do remember the days when meat, chicken and fish were wrapped in paper or paper bags at the wet markets. they use the glossy paper from magazines for making the bags. also they have the meat and chicken hanging from hooks so that much of the blood has dripped and does not get the paper too wet. (in the supermarkets they used paper bags made from "wax paper" for these items.) still in the wet markets, for the "dry" items like vegetables, dried fish, tinapa, mongo, salt, etc. they used ordinary newspaper rolled into a conical shape (imagine the packaging of a cornetto ice cream) or folded and pasted into an envelope using "gawgaw". i had an aunt who used to augment her public teacher's salary by making paper bags from newspapers and sold those to the market vendors. that was until the plastic bags came along, and that was not too long ago as she was still making those paper bags in the early 1980s.

just sharing to you young folks who never experienced this, not arguing. i'm just saying that we did it before, we can still do it now.

Yes, I remember having glossy paper and waxed paper to wrap wet market items. But the point of using recycled "paper bags" would be lost because glossy paper and wax paper does not biodegrade. Not to mention, the question of hygiene because you don't know how the old magazines were handled before and during their conversion into recycled "paper bags".

Just sharing.

[shadow]

yun mga wet items pwede plastic pero isa Lang hinde na pwede padoble,

[Jiggs]

Call me a Treehugger...but I would be proud to be one. And correct...all cities that ban plastics are not total outright banning of it. Selected fews like wet items are still allowed to use it. The wanton use of plastics just for the sake of profit and convenience ang kino control. We here in Batangas City finally also adopted what Muntinglupa did. Siempre sa una maraming angal ang tao..but konti konting namindset na magdala sila ng reusable bags or face the burden of carrying it in a fragile paper bags. There were already a big improvement in the amount of collection of garbage according to the city administrator. Somebody had to brave the first step. Well eventually plastics will also end if the hydrocarbons runs dry.

[shadow]

charge extra kumg magpapadoble ng plastic like it other countries

[uls]

hilig kasi sa plastic bag mga consumers

sa checkout counter kahit 1 item lang (like 1 bottled water) kailangan pa may plastic bag... iinomin naman agad

[Sarsi]

Time to buy those reusable bags, and time to buy trash bag, also.

[shadow]

Ganun naman Sa abroad eh magbayad ka Kung gagamit ka ng plastic bag Sa grocery


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[BratPAQ]

Pede pa rin plastic sa QC though may bayad nga lang (2 petot daw), yung mga wet products like meat, fish and poultry eh plastic pa rin pero yung walang hawakan, you still need those eco bags and bayong.

Yung ibang grocery eh kung marami kang binili, kahon ang gagamitin nila.

Mahirap lang minsan kung bibili ka tulad ng 10 softdrinks in can na malamig sa 7-11, then sa papel ilalagay, paglabas mo pa lang butas kagad yung papel. So it would help if you have one of those eco bags na foldable as big as a wallet at lagi mo dala.

[nic]

Tanung ko lang, sa STRAW BAN, pano yung mga Milk Tea or Zagu?
Kung walang straw, di uubusin mo muna drink bago mo makain pearls.
Baka naman mamaya palitan nila ng plastic spoon since hindi naman banned.

[Ry_Tower]

Tanung ko lang, sa STRAW BAN, pano yung mga Milk Tea or Zagu?
Kung walang straw, di uubusin mo muna drink bago mo makain pearls.
Baka naman mamaya palitan nila ng plastic spoon since hindi naman banned.

Tapos ma-ban din plastic spoon. :hysterical:

[renzo_d10]

Tanung ko lang, sa STRAW BAN, pano yung mga Milk Tea or Zagu?
Kung walang straw, di uubusin mo muna drink bago mo makain pearls.
Baka naman mamaya palitan nila ng plastic spoon since hindi naman banned.

I'm fine with banning plastic spoon & forks -- if ever they plan to. I'm used to using the metal spoons on fastfood/restaurants anyway.

Nakaka-tamad kasi himayin ng manok kapag gamit mo plastic spoon & fork, parang ang dali masira. For kids, just bring their own set of utensils.

Ang ayoko lang yung straw ban. Kung pati sa milk tea shops gagawin yan, magdadala nalang ako ng sarili kong straw.

Nung nag-grocery nga pala ako kahapon dito sa QC, namigay ng libreng green bag ang SaveMore. So apat na yung ganun ko.

Dati binebenta nila yun for 10 pesos each, eh.