LAGAWE, Ifugao - Local and environment officials here are supporting the immediate enactment into law of two Senate bills that seek to regulate the use of plastic grocery bags and push for the use of environment-friendly alternatives in order to help preserve and protect the state of the region's environment. Senate Bill 1103 authored by Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. promotes sound waste management by requiring all department stores, malls, and commercial establishments to utilize re-usable environment-friendly shopping bags and provide them free of charge to their customers and patrons.
Aside from being consonant with the basic consumer rights, local officials cited that the use of environment-friendly shopping bags instead of plastics is in accordance with the right of the people to a healthy environment which must be upheld by the national and local governments for the benefit of the present and future generations of Filipinos. For their part, environmentalists here prodded local government units (LGUs) to adopt policies that will prevent local establishments from using plastics but instead use other environment-friendly materials so that people will learn to be stewards of the environment and minimize the use of plastics which are branded as hazardous to health and the environment.
At the same time, concerned local officials claimed business establishments must now be compelled to use re-usable bags every day so that people will not be exposed to the hazards of plastics in their daily activities. Despite the massive campaign being launched by the national government to compel business establishments to use alternative containers for their customers, it has been observed that numerous establishments continuously use plastic bag which is not in consonance to the relentless effort to help save the deteriorating condition of the environment. As this developed, officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) here appealed to customers of business establishments to bring their re-usable cloth bags when buying their needs so that they will be able to significantly contribute in the effort to reduce the use of plastic bags and eventually eradicate the same in the future considering its serious negative impact to the state of the environment. (Dexter A. See)
