Plastic waste is sorted at a new recycling plant in Metro Manila. (Photo: Nikkei Asia Review)Hanoi (VNA) – To help deal withplastic waste, the Philippines plans to soon put into use a new 25 million peso (481,877 USD) garbage-disposal plantin Metro Manila, the Nikkei Asia Review reported on September 14.
The plant is expected to pulveriseabout 1 tonne of plastic a day, equal to about 400,000 sachets of shampoo andinstant coffee, to make sidewalk blocks and other products.
The country is also getting seriousabout plastic waste imported illegally from developed countries as it announcedin August that it would impose a three-month moratorium on waste-relatedimports. It has even sent some back to Canada, which had been discoveredshipping waste illegally to the country for years.
More than 8 million tonnes ofplastic is dumped into the world's oceans each year, with China and four otherAsian nations accounting for the majority of this. Meanwhile, the mountains ofplastic waste produced globally had largely gone unnoticed until China beganreducing waste imports in 2014 before banning them outright in 2018.
With nowhere to go, the wastefound its way to Southeast Asia, with the Philippines seeing plastic wasteimports rise 150 percent from 2016 to about 11,800 tonnes in 2018.
Following Duterte'stirade, the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resourcesannounced the three-month moratorium. A department official urged businesses totake the waste matter seriously and promised to cooperate with them in theirefforts to tackle the problem.
The Global Alliance forIncinerator Alternatives has heavily criticised multinationals' reliance onsingle-use plastics, saying that nearly 60 percent of plastic packaging in thePhilippines comes from 10 multinational companies, including Nestle, Unileverand Procter & Gamble.
Moreover, investors arebeginning to focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investmentprinciples so businesses cannot afford to ignore the issue.
Many other Southeast Asiancountries are also unhappy with multinationals over the vast amounts of plasticwaste they generate. This has prompted about 40 companies – including DowChemical and BASF – to establish the nonprofit Alliance to End Plastic Waste inJanuary./.
VNA
