DENR-XI lauds Davao City for banning plastic bags

DAVAO CITY, May 11 – The Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the region (DENR-XI) lauds the City Government of Davao for its move to completely, totally and absolutely ban the use of non-biodegradable and polystyrene foam as food and beverage containers effective June 28, 2012.

The ban of these non-biodegradable containers is spelled out in Section 7, Article V of the Ordinance 0361 series of 2010 of the Davao City Ecological Waste Management of 2009.

The banning of these non-biodegradable containers will significantly reduce the City’s burden on managing wastes that are very damaging to the environment, said DENR-XI Regional Executive Director Jim O. Sampulna.

 “Once plastic bags or polystyrene foams are used, most of them go to the landfill or end up littering the environment.

And once they become litter, they find their ways into the waterways, streets, beaches and seas,” Sampulna stated. “Plastics and polystyrene foams clog waterways and pollute our oceans and seas too.

The sad reality is since they are non-biodegradables, their decomposition takes very long years,” he added. Sampulna recalled that during the agency’s coastal clean-up in 2011, most of the garbage were composed of plastic wrappers/containers which form part of the 17,087 kilos of garbage collected.

On the other hand, plastic wrappers/containers also made up most of the 252 sacks of garbage collected during their estero or canal clean activities.

Sampulna further said that DENR Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje has instructed all the field offices in the country to continuously provide technical assistance to the LGUs as far as solid waste management is concerned.

With the upcoming ban on the use of plastic food containers, DENR expects to collect lesser or zero plastic food containers in their next coastal and canal clean up activities. (DENR-XI/Bing Cordova)