In a Pampanga mall, plastic policy confuses consumers, but pro-environment bid continues

In Pampanga, a mall with what appears to be a dual personality paints an interesting image—one half of it bans plastic bags entirely, while the other, until recently, had shoppers carry out purchases in the familiar plastic sando bag.

The reason? Apparently a technicality over the applicability of a plastic bag ban ordinance.

The mall straddles two geographical territories: San Fernando City and the municipality of Mexico. The former started the gradual ban of plastic bags in 2014, while the latter has reportedly been playing catch-up with an ordinance of its own.

For a time, shoppers with items that would be difficult to wrap in a paper bag would be asked by well-meaning cashiers to go to the Mexico side to get their goods into plastic bags, the mall's public relations manager told GMA News Online.

This was confirmed by the city mayor himself, a city councilor, and an officer of the city’s environment office, which has been monitoring San Fernando’s policy on plastic.

Now, SM City Pampanga's PR manager said that even the Mexico side is in the "transitory stage" of implementing a ban of its own. She claimed it only uses biodegradable plastic bags approved by the local government.

But for officials in San Fernando City, a model city in terms of solid waste management, this little technicality spells frustration in their bid to implement pro-environment policies to the letter.

“Nakakalungkot. Within the mall, siyempre wala namang boundary line within the mall. Consumers are confused,” said San Fernando Councilor Benedict Jasper Simon Lagman in an interview with GMA News Online.

Lagman authored the city’s Plastic-Free Ordinance, which was adopted in June 2014 and fully implemented in January 2015.

San Fernando Mayor Edwin Santiago said he had discussed the matter with the mall’s management.

San Fernando is hailed as one of the few cities in the country to strictly adhere to the provisions of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, also known as Republic Act No. 9003, a piece of legislation that the rest of the country appears to be struggling to implement.

RA 9003 looks at solid waste management as a public health and environment issue and provides for the use of “environmentally-sound” methods that encourage the conservation and recovery of natural resources. It also encourages local government action and public participation.

For its part, the City of San Fernando took the law seriously as soon as it was enacted, said Santiago, but officers from the city environment office said it took until 2015 or 2016 to reach an 86-percent compliance rate among its 35 barangays.

A city of more than 300,000 people, with more subdivisions than barangays, San Fernando takes pride in its solid waste management efforts that have reduced the waste generation of each individual to a minimum, said Santiago.

If a person used to produce nearly a kilo of trash each day, the local government’s initiative had whittled it to around 80 percent of a kilo, and only a fifth of that should end up in a landfill, he said.

And whatever trash ends up getting produced gets collected and brought to Materials Recovery Facilities (MRF), or organized, mostly stench-free areas tended by garbage collectors and administered by barangay officials.

The cost of garbage disposal

Santiago said the local government spends around P20 million a year for garbage disposal, a far cry from the spending of cities in Metro Manila.

Navotas City, smaller than San Fernando in terms of population, spent P49,118,138 on “environment/sanitary services” in 2016, according to the annual audit report by the Commission on Audit (COA).

San Fernando City, also according to COA, spent P14,110,711.78 for the same purpose in 2016.

Quezon City alone spent P778,548,579 for environment/sanitary services in 2016—it is, however a much larger city.

Noteworthy of Santiago’s remarks is his appreciation for community participation, education and “motivation” in proper solid waste management.

“Ang success ng RA 9003...hindi lang batas sa taas eh, dapat ito ibaba,” he said in an interview, citing an information campaign among the city’s people, especially the youth in schools, as among one of the driving factors in the city’s “successful” implementation of the law.

“We cannot embrace other technology rather than 'yung segregation muna,” he later added, saying incineration is beyond their capability at the moment.

Garbage incineration—while a practiced form of waste disposal in developed countries such as Japan, China, Denmark, and Finland—is excluded by RA 9003’s provisions on recovery facilities and waste treatment best practices.

'Pasaway'

Of course, San Fernando officials said, the city has its share of "pasaway" inhabitants, who are dealt with through a ticketing system, which for business establishments could mean a recommendation for closure at the worst.

During a visit to San Fernando by GMA News Online, some of the city’s environment officers apprehended an elderly man burning a heap of old leaves—agricultural waste—in his front yard. He was lucky we did not have tickets with us, said one of the officers.

Under local government policy, those with dirty house fronts could be fined P300 to P1,000. Those who do not segregate waste could be fined P500 to P1,000. Allowing unsegregated waste to be collected is worth P1,000 to P3,000 in fines.

Business establishments, meanwhile, may pay P2,000 to P5,000 for the same offenses.

It appears the city’s efforts have not been for naught—in April 2016, the People Management Association of the Philippines Human Resources Management Foundation awarded to the city the distinction of “Tanging Bayani ng Kalikasan” (Clean Air and Climate Change).

Several government officials and non-government groups have also visited the city to learn from the city’s practices, said Santiago.

There are now more than 120 MRFs in the city, covering all 35 barangays, as well as schools, subdivisions, and business establishments, according to information sent by the City Environment and Natural Resources Office.

The city is also now known to environmental groups as a “zero waste” city. Zero waste refers to a “philosophy” for waste management, which promotes recycling and discourages sending garbage to landfills. It does not refer to the complete absence of waste.

A working system?

San Fernando’s waste segregation facilities may not be painted resplendent colors for picture-perfection, but the city's system works, said Sherma Benosa, a member of the nonprofit environmental group Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).

Environmental nonprofit organization Mother Earth Foundation, a member organization of GAIA, has been assisting the City of San Fernando in its bid for a greener city.

According to a report by environmental alliance Zero Waste Pilipinas released in January, San Fernando, Puerto Princesa City, Barangay Fort Santiago in Taguig, and Barangay Potrero in Malabon have been making efforts to implement RA 9003.

An MRF should contain an eco-shed for recyclables, a compost pit, a compost heap, a containment area for residuals, an organic garden, a collection cart, a perimeter fence, and labels for each section, said the report.

One MRF in San Fernando’s Barangay San Isidro, home to 12,000 people, checked off all these components.

Barangay San Isidro’s Chairman Nestor Lingat said the segregation scheme saw a rough start, but was eventually adopted by residents. However it is not without a few violators, some of them outsiders.

A visit to San Isidro showed a creek still littered with garbage in plastic bags, despite the ban on plastic and the general local government drive for waste disposal. Barangay officials attributed it to a lack of discipline.

The Philippines, a polluter

In 2015, the Philippines was tagged by scientists as the world’s third-worst ocean polluter.

In 2017, Pasig River was named the world’s eighth-worst contributor of plastic waste into the oceans. According to researchers, it dumps plastic the weight of 10,600 elephants into the ocean each year.

Also this year, a clean-up drive by environmental groups on Freedom Island off Manila Bay revealed a list of companies that are most responsible for plastic pollution. This list was topped by giant firms Nestle, Unilever, and Procter & Gamble, which responded through a promise that they will explore alternatives to plastic packaging.

Going back to the City of San Fernando, home to a food and beverage industry, Councilor Lagman said they have been lobbying for the adoption of a province-wide plastic ban to Pampanga’s provincial government.

Legislators in other municipalities, he said, have expressed interest to follow San Fernando’s example in instituting a gradual plastic ban, which could address SM City Pampanga’s confusing plastic policy.

Although he remains hopeful that data on garbage disposal in the country and the province would prompt his colleagues to enact policies of their own, he said, “I think it's—as of the moment—it's not one of their priorities. 'Yun lang.” —KG, GMA News