Legarda To Retailers: Recycle, Reuse Plastic Bags

August 6, 2010

“Our urban areas are crowded with malls, supermarkets, grocery stores, palengkes, tiangges, and other sales outlets. Purchases in these stores are concluded with customers walking out of the mall or store carrying several plastic bags.”
“Some of these plastic bags are reused while others are dumped either properly or improperly. In instances where these bags are dumped improperly, they end up clogging drainages, polluting waterways and even endangering marine animals and ecosystems,” the Chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Climate Change asserted.
“What people don’t know is that the production of plastic bags requires considerable amounts of crude oil and natural gas. ”
“A plastic bag reuse-recycle program will provide an opportunity for the public to return to the store clean plastic bags that originated from the store or from any store of a chain of five or more retail establishments.”
Legarda’s bill specifies that the recycling program provided by the operator of a store shall require:
1. A plastic bag collection bin to be placed at or near the entrance to each store, and such bin shall be highly visible and indicate that the bin is intended for the reusing of plastic bags and not for the discarding of garbage. Such collection bin shall be easily accessible to the costumer; and such collection bin shall be clearly marked that the collection bin is available for the purpose of collecting and recycling plastic bags only.
2. That all plastic bags collected by the store are to be collected, handled and recycled in a manner consistent with all applicable laws or any pertinent rule or regulation.
3. That the operator of the store shall direct store personnel to reuse plastic bags collected through the program as container for purchases of customers instead of using new plastic bags until the collected bags in a batch of collection were used.
4. That costumers making subsequent purchases from the same store or from any store of a chain of five or more retail establishments who reuse the plastic bags from the same shall be provided with a discount or given a promotional item, details of which shall be made by the establishment or chain of establishments.
Legarda was invited to be the guest speaker today at the SM Eco-Bag Grand Launch at the SM Megamall Event Center.
In her speech, Legarda lauded the new colorfully designed polypropylene (recyclable non-toxic and allergy free material) SM – Eco bags designed to represent the four elements of fire – Spark, water- Flow, earth – Renew and air – Breathe which are supposed to remind us what we are working for to save the environment.