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Flood of plastic - Miriam Coronel Ferrer

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WAYS OF SPECIES | MIRIAM CORONEL FERRER | 10/09/2009 3:17 AM

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At the rate plastic bags are being used to distribute tons and tons of relief goods to the hundreds of thousands of families displaced by typhoons Ondoy and Pepang, we will soon have another environmental disaster haunting us – a flood of plastic.

Aside from being cheap and lightweight, plastic bags keep precious rice, clothing and other goods dry and fairly secure from contamination. That is why they have become standard packing material for relief goods.

Unfortunately, unlike flood water, these colorful plastic bags will not go away. They will clog our esteros and fill up the dumpsites. Unlike mud and other organic debris, they will not disintegrate and replenish the earth. Long after they have been buried or submerged in water, they will remain as they are or convert into toxic substances that are absorbed by the earth or the seas. Or they are eaten b y hapless birds and fish, who end up dead due to plastic matter lodged in their bellies.

On top of the plastic used for putting together goods, relief items such as instant noodles also come in plastic wrappers. Evacuees are right to complain about the instant noodles that have inundated relief centers. Not only are these food items nutrition-deficient and high in salt content and other chemicals, they add up to the plastic waste matter.

What are the alternatives?

One suggestion is to use covered pails or other reusable containers. Although most likely also made of plastic to be waterproof, these are at least reusable. They can be used for fetching water, storing all sorts of stuff, flushing the toilet, taking a bath and even as floaters during floods. We have seen babies and toddlers carried away to safety from rising waters in the pail that one typically finds in a Filipino household in tandem with the tabo (dipper).

Feeding centers should also do away with styrofoam or brittle plastic spoons in favor of reusable bowls and spoons which can be washed and reused.

Sturdier, reusable containers will cost more (the cheap ones are no good since they break easily and will just end up in the garbage pile). The cost can be offset by their greater utility and presumably lesser negative environmental impact – unless producing these sturdier plastic products actually generate more toxic waste.

In any case, we must undertake other measures that would offset the extraordinary use of plastic bags the past two weeks since Ondoy. One simple solution is to simply use less or no throw-away plastic for other purposes.

Example, for marketing, we can get into the habit (if we haven’t yet) of bringing along reusable containers, along with the bayong. Sellers can go back to wrapping vegetables in used newspaper or banana leaves.

Stop buying bottled water, especially the small ones, since they generate more waste and cost more for less. Moreover, the cheap plastic that is ordinarily used for bottled water produces toxin when subjected to heat. Considering the temperature in this tropics, chances are from the bottling firm to the supermarket shelves, these goods have already been exposed. But not many people are aware of this health hazard. They even recycle or stack up on these bottles in their cars or homes.

When our family went on a trip to Palawan, each one brought a small, water container. For our journey by car from Puerto Princesa to El Nido, we bought treated water in two-gallon containers which we dispensed in our individual jugs as needed. This practice was not only cheaper, it produced less waste.

People will be encouraged to bring their own thermos bottles or traveling mugs if water is dispensed in refillable dispensers and sold at a much cheaper price than bottled water. Shops in airports, terminals and offices (where drinking water is not freely available, as if often the case) can pioneer in this more environment-friendly mode of retailing water.

What we can practice in the market, we can enforce even more systematically in the supermarkets and shopping malls. Groceries and shops can charge a fee for every plastic bag used and donate the money raised to fund rehabilitation efforts. Charging for plastic bags is already being done in other countries.

Tingi-tingi or small packs of shampoo, toothpaste, sauces and oil may be practical to those whose spending money is limited, but all these increase non-biodegradable waste. Manufacturers can instead supply sari-sari store with wholesale suka, toyo, cooking oil, and shampoo in large dispensers, which storeowners can retail to small buyers at a cheaper price if they bring along reusable containers. There’s merit to the practice in the old days when suka was poured in a funnel to buyers and dry stuff was handed out in brown paper bags.

Finally, perhaps those plastic bags used for relief goods should be retrieved and used for planting seedlings. This way we need not use new seedling bags. Every seed from these plastic bags that grows into a tree would remind us of the great flood that destroyed but also gave us a chance to reform our wasteful way of life and pathetic governance. Hopefully the trees would not look down at us and say, “You blew it again!”

E-mail: mcf178@yahoo.com