Proper implementation of the Extended Producer’s Responsibility (EPR) Law of 2022 can help the country not only in addressing waste management but also in achieving economic growth, according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
The EPR Law requires large companies to collect, recycle and dispose plastic packaging wastes.
In a speech at an event jointly organized by the DENR and the United Nations Development Program last Friday, DENR Secretary Antonia Loyzaga said the country generates roughly 61,000 metric tons of solid waste daily, 12 to 24 percent of which are plastic in various forms.
Loyzaga said more than 163 million plastic sachet packets, 48 million shopping bags and 45 million thin-film bags are generated daily, 33 percent of which are disposed in landfills and in dumpsites and around 35 percent leaked into the open environment.
Citing a World Bank study made in 2019, Loyzaga said around 70 percent of the material value of plastics is lost to the economy each year which is equivalent to roughly a value loss of around $790 to $890 million per year.
“Circularity, therefore, is not just linked to environmental sustainability. Its processes can yield multiple system-wide benefits beyond resource efficiency and emissions reduction. Strategic waste management policies and practices can provide stable livelihoods, impact economic growth and with the avoidance of plastics reaching our ecosystems in both land and sea, increase food and water security and the disaster resilience of our communities,” Loyzaga said.
DENR said the EPR approach is practised in many countries around the world and focuses on waste reduction, recovery and recycling. It also entails the development of environment-friendly products that advocate the internationally-accepted principles of sustainable consumption and production and the circular economy.
The agency said every step of the life cycle of plastic contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, from extraction, transportation of fossil fuels through the energy and emissions, intensive refining and up to its disposal as waste and leakage in the environment.
