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I saw Cheche Lazaro’s documentary film, “Plastic Ka!”, in one of the big TV stations here in the Philippines last night and as always I ended up getting disappointed. I really do not understand why documentaries pose more questions than solutions, more interviews about opinions than on educating viewers about alternatives, and more video documentation of the problem than focusing on strategic approaches. Sometimes I feel that Ted Failon’s “Failon Ngayon” is the only real documentary that really pushes people to act rather than just parading the problem for 30 minutes to an hour just for the heck of making a show.
Enough of my rant, the documentary may have been triggered by the recent floods in Manila, plastics seem to be all over the place – 60% of all the garbage collected along Roxas Boulevard (all 48 truckloads ~ 200 tons of garbage) was made of plastic materials and 80% of which are plastic bags. Fact: plastic bags are cheaper and more environmentally friendly to make as it leaves very little ecological footprint compared to making paper bags. Now, we cannot argue with that fact, to make something artificial, we would need artificial materials. Whereas, if we are to make more paper bags as an alternative to plastic bags, then we will be cutting 17 trees to make 1 ton of paper so that is just a no brainer, we cannot substitute plastic with paper – period.
The use of plastic bags are banned in some cities in Luzon and they claim it has helped lower down their flood levels, while some cities only try to limit its use because “a degree of compliance at a time” is their approach and was even suggesting the use of a thinner plastic bag as this will have the same utility but with lesser negative natural impact. Also, some people are suggesting that we should use a “bio” plastic bag which will degrade in 24 months, but even that has a downside; experts say that even if it will break down into smaller fragments in 24 months, it still has plastic components. Ergo, biodegradable plastic bags – no such thing.
Plastic ban is out of the argument for the simple reason that this is not something we can implement here and now and there is already an existing bill about to be passed to the Philippine Senate in its plans to ban plastic in 5 years.
So, what are my take aways? When shopping, use biodegradable bags made of cloth and/or a wicker basket. Malls should use old newspapers when wrapping items up before handing them over to their customers. Food chains should not use plastic cups/Styrofoam and the likes.
But a couple of problems still left unanswered here:
1. What will the food chains use? Wouldn’t washing plates, cups and utensils be harmful to our health due to the nature of “fast” food? Wouldn’t we waste more water cost-per-cost against recycling plastics?
2. How will our garbage bags look like? Composting your own biodegradable items and separating plastics for collections seems to be the most ideal, but is it the most practical? What about those people who live in condominiums, renting a place, and living in a very tiny home – can they afford to have their own composting methods? And what will they do with the composted materials?
3. Where is the government? What can they do with the HERE and NOW? Garbage collection schedules aren’t even done consistently every week and yet we keep on saying that the government is doing their share?
Our mayors and Barangay Captains should be at the helm for all the flood and garbage problems. Solutions should be multi-pronged or else the problem will just spill over to the next one. Look at it as trying to catch a single rabbit that has access to multiple burrows, you will find yourself confused where to start if all you do is focus on one burrow at a time.
Hence, what happened in Roxas Boulevard? How come the blame was not on the shoulders of Mayor Alfredo Lim? He knows the flood and garbage problems of Metro Manila, he damn well knows about the garbage problem in Manila Bay, where is he in all of this? He is another classic example of how inefficient Mayors are in this country. They are Mayors only for the power and not because of performance. So where is the garbage problem now? In the streets? Or inside our local government offices?
