Unfortunately plastic usage in the Philippines very common in daily lives. According to the statistic I’ve seen recently indicates that Philippines is number 1 in the world plastic usage per capita.

Used plastics are one of the cause of ocean pollution. Sea animals are badly effected with the plastic that we caused. Used plastics from the cities are distributed to ocean by rivers. For instance, Pasig River is in the heart of the Philippines Capitol. By rain and wind, those plastics and trash would drop to river. And river flow will bring whatever inside the river to ocean.

Strong wind and rain would cause this but it is mainly us, human caused bad habits. I think the solution would be to find alternative materials to those plastics. It is not just a straw in the McDonald’s. Fast food stores are very common in the Philippines. Need to find alternative solutions to one time use plastic materials. Those plastics single-time used only by human but the plastic materials goes a long way to ocean and cause immutable problem for sea lives.

In Muntinlupa city, there is no plastic bag given to customers in the supermarket. It is encouraged to bring your own bag or get a carton box from the market to carry your purchased products. I think this is helpful but in other cities this rule is not implemented. Although there are non-plastic bags in the supermarkets such as Rustan’s and Robinsons, plastic bag is still being provided. In Landmark, only paper bag given.

Moreover, in public markets plastic bags are widely used. I was very surprised when I see coconut water was put in a plastic bag. And also construction workers are putting their lunch in a plastic. This should not be like this. I believe there are carton alternatives to plastic bag. Also it is not a convenient way of having lunch from the plastic. It is not a plate though..

And lastly, I do not think there are enough trash boxes in the Philippines. Every streets must have trash boxes. Next to the bus stations there must be trash boxes. Unfortunately there is not enough garbage collection management in Metro Manila cities. Local governments must manage it. Collect the garbage as soon as possible and process the recycle.

In conclusion, there must be a willing to change daily habits of the people in the shopping, public market and eating places. Local governments should take action too.

Refill Your Bottle

Another simple implementation would be the simple refill your bottle instead of buying bottled water from a convenience shop.

We should have a habit to refill our bottles.

See the Twitter post below from Mayor of London informing people about the drinking fountains to prevent single-use plastic water bottles.