Michael Reyes from the Environmental Police Unit added that the campaigns encourage residents to gather their plastic waste and sell it to junkshops, as part of the city’s plastic and Styrofoam recovery project.
A total of 250 junkshops and 92 plastic recycling plants were registered with the WMO in 2012.
Along with the PPIA, the WMO also partnered with the Polystyrene Packaging Council of the Philippines (PPCP) to boost the city’s efforts in recycling and recovery.
Ramil Ascueta of the PPCP said his group was amenable to the regulation of plastic use, but not to a total ban.
After a number of cities in Metro Manila implemented a plastic ban in 2011, plastic manufacturing companies experienced a huge drop in sales and struggled to keep their employees on the job. Latest data from the PPIA showed that some 175,000 factory workers were affected by the plastic ban. Companies have also suffered as much as an 80-percent drop in their total sales.
According to Tavera, one of the biggest factories in the PPIA produces around 10 metric tons of plastic bags daily. After the local ordinances were enacted, the factory could only sell one to two metric tons per day.
“It (plastic ban) is almost killing the industry, though they say it is [only a] regulation,†Tavera said.
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