Department Of Environment Clarifies Re-Export As Sustainability Innovation
MANILA —
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has unveiled what officials are describing as an “ambitious and forward-looking” plan to tackle the Philippines’ mountain of plastic waste — namely, by sending a great deal more of it to other countries and reclassifying the act of export as “circular economy.”
Metro Manila alone produces more than 10,000 tons of solid waste every day, a significant share of it single-use plastic packaging. According to independent studies, only around 28 percent of key plastic resins are actually recycled. The rest ends up in landfills like the one currently burning at Navotas, or in waterways, or in the digestive tracts of fish that are then served at Saturday brunch.
The Export Solution
Under the new plan, plastic waste currently bound for domestic landfills will instead be gathered, baled, and sent by container ship to “partner nations.” The partner nations have not yet been named because, officials clarified, “we haven’t asked them yet.”
“The technical term is re-export,” said an undersecretary who requested anonymity because he suspected this might end his career. “We prefer to think of it as giving other countries the gift of our packaging innovation.”
Critics pointed out that the plan shifts the environmental problem rather than solving it. The undersecretary responded that “shifting” is itself a form of action, and that “doing nothing is a choice; this is a different choice.”
The Sachet Economy
The Philippines’ addiction to sachets — tiny, low-cost packets of shampoo, coffee, soy sauce, and ketchup — is central to the problem. Sachets are nearly impossible to recycle at scale because each one weighs almost nothing but exists in quantities sufficient to cover the moon.
Editors at Bohiney Magazine have argued that the real innovation would be to ban sachets outright. The undersecretary pushed back, pointing out that sachets are “how low-income families afford branded goods” and that eliminating them “would be a regressive policy.” He did not address why branded goods should be the goal.
The United Nations Environment Programme has classified the Philippines as one of the world’s largest contributors to ocean plastic. Industry lobbyists prefer the phrase “high-impact market.”
A writer at The London Prat noted that the UK also has a plastic problem, but that the British approach is to worry about it publicly while doing very little. “The Philippine approach,” she wrote, “at least has the virtue of commitment.”
At press time, the Department of Environment had issued a further clarification: the re-export plan would be implemented only if “international partners agreed,” which, it admitted, was “a significant if.”
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SOURCE: https://mb.com.ph/article/10915060/opinion/a-burning-reminder-this-earth-week