Challenges

of Environmental Governance and the

Ban on Single Use Plastics

Author: Tomasito S. Villarin, DPA
(PA 201 Prof. Jocelyn Cuaresma)

Abstract

Environmental governance refers to the set of regulatory processes, mechanisms
and organizations through which political actors influence environmental actions
and outcomes. It encompasses interlocking body of statutes, common laws, treaties,
conventions, policies and regulations that are passed to regulate the interaction of
humanity and nature. Their purpose is to reduce or minimize the impacts of human
activity, both on the natural environment for its own sake, and on humanity itself.
Republic Act (RA) No. 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000
served as a landmark legislation for managing solid waste in the country. It tasked
local government units to have solid waste management plans and a national
commission to oversee it including sanctions for non-compliance. Unfortunately,
less than half of LGUs have complied with the law’s mandate two decade after it was
passed. The sheer volume of residual waste that can’t be recycled especially plastics
generated daily is beyond the capacity of LGUs and the only way to manage single
use plastics is to make less of it. To address these policy gaps, government need
robust data and effective strategies to address the plastic pollution problem.

Key words: environmental governance, regulation, integrated and sustainable waste
management, governance of the commons, plastic pollution, local governments, policy
gaps



















I. Overview: Environmental governance in solid waste management

Managing waste properly is essential for building sustainable and livable cities as
part of the sustainable development goals, but it remains a challenge for many
developing countries and cities. Effective waste management is expensive, often
comprising of a third to half of local government budgets. Operating this essential
municipal service requires integrated systems that are efficient, sustainable, and
socially supported. The inadequate waste management cause damage to the
ecosystems including air, water, and soil pollution, and represents a real threat to
human health. There is now abundant research and experimentation on this field.
In public administration and governance, such researches fall within `new
governance' theories, practices and dilemmas. These theories span many spheres of
social policy and multidimensional fields of study.

This article would like to assess how our solid waste problem is managed from an
environmental governance perspective and make some recommendations. The aim
of environmental governance, in particular, is to manage individual behaviors or
collective actions in pursuance of public environmental goods and related societal
outcomes based on attributes and objectives (Keeney & Gregory, 2005). To
comprehend environmental governance is to understand how decisions related to
the environment are made and whether resultant policies and processes lead to
environmentally and socially sustainable outcomes. The analysis of environmental
governance focuses on the capacity, functioning, and/or performance of the
institutional, structural, and procedural elements of governance. Since the birth of
modern environmental regulation in the 1970s, designing and implementing
effective, efficient and legitimate regulation and governance have remained a
continuing challenge for governments and society (Bennett and Satterfield, 2018).

In the developed countries, solid waste management (SWM) belongs to prominent
thrust areas for pursuing research (Dijkgraaf & Gradus, 2004; Ferrara & Missios,
2005) and economic and technological advancements have initiated responsiveness
of stakeholders towards it (Shekdar, 2009). Globally, the challenge of high
population growth rates, rapidly varying waste characterization and generation
patterns, growing urbanization and industrialization in developing countries
(Troschinetz & Mihelcic, 2009) are the important reasons for paying attention
towards SWM as more area is required to accommodate waste (Idris, Inane, &
Hassan, 2004) and its runoff affects the oceans. Several studies suggest that
reutilizing of solid waste is not only a viable option to municipal solid waste
management (Kasseva & Mbuligwe, 2000; Sudhir, Muraleedharan, & Srinivasan,
1996) but also desirable—socially, economically, and environmentally (Kaseva &
Gupta, 1996; Misra & Pandey, 2005; Schoot Uiterkamp, Azadi, & Ho, 2011). In urban
India, there is almost no segregation of MSW and disposal of construction and
demolition debris (C&D), plastic wastes, commercial and industrial refuses, and e-
waste (Buenrostro & Bocco, 2003; CPCB, 2000a, 2009) and this is also a rising
problem globally.

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II. Theoretical framework and review of literature

In the article “The Politics of Regulation: Concepts, Policies, and Practice” by Minerva
S. Baylon, the author pointed out that the administrative and socio-economic
aspects of regulation is a relatively unexplored area. However, most of the research
on regulation has been centered on market competition among industries and
effects of market liberalization on different industries and consumers (McGregor et
al 2005, Black 2002). In the Philippines, the politics of regulation has been inquired
into and studied by researchers like De Dios (1999), Carmona (2003), Basilio
(2003), and M.F. Mendoza (2003). Mendoza studied what she termed as the three
‘senses’ of regulation, namely: 1) regulatory contents of public polices and laws, e.g.
legal and policy framework; 2) specific regulators and the processes they adopt, e.g.
institutional framework and practice of regulation; and 3) the manner by which
regulation has been carried out and its concomitant outputs and effects on the
regulated firm and its consumers (dela Rosa Reyes et al, 2016).

For this article, the author would like to apply the theoretical framework of looking
into the ‘senses’ of regulation, i.e. the regulatory contents of environmental laws and
the policy framework pursued by agencies tasked to implement it and its effect on
the public at large. This framework would use three sets of approaches in
environmental regulation into making the assessment, namely: 1) Command and
control; 2) Market-based incentives and disincentives; and 3) New governance:
governance of the commons, collaboration and sustainable development.

Most environmental governance law falls into a general category of laws known as
“command and control” (CAC). Such laws typically involve three elements: (1)
identification of a type of environmentally harmful activity, (2) imposition of
specific conditions or standards on that activity, and (3) prohibition of forms of the
activity that fail to comply with the imposed conditions or standards. Picturing out
Hobbes’s Leviathan (1985), this involved centralized legislatures setting blanket
environmental targets, such as emission standards, exposure levels or technology
standards (the command). Delegated agents, such as environmental protection
agencies, were then empowered to police compliance and impose penalties where
standards were breached (the control). These agents exercised their mandate
through regulation.

Regulation in general is defined as a form of government intervention in economic
activity and interference with the working of the free market system especially
when there is market failure. In economics, market failure happens when the
allocation of goods and services by a free market is not efficient, often leading to a
net social welfare loss. Its causes are monopolistic behavior, externalities, public
good, insufficient market information, moral hazards and transaction costs.
Government thus has to intervene and regulate the market through specific
measures and instruments designed to balance the market with the public welfare.
However, the definition of regulation is a contested concept and its essence is the
subject of a continuing argument (den Hertog, 2000).

3

The command and control theory on environmental regulation was deemed
ineffective in addressing environmental problems without considering the market.
Market based environmental governance speaks about the trade offs in economic
growth if strict environmental regulation is pursued. According to Adam Smith’s
vision of an ‘invisible hand,’ if free market mechanism is allowed to materialize, it
would lead rational, self-maximizing individuals to promote ‘public interests’
without the need for forceful government interference. What was needed was the
creation of market signals that would place a value on and charge relevantly the use
of such scarce assets. Thus, market-based incentives and instruments were
introduced rather than regulation. These included economic incentive–based
schemes, subsidies and other market approaches, such as land acquisitions and
payments, were also increasingly adopted to address more complex issues on the
environment. Over subsequent decades, some notable market-based instruments
included the acid rain, sulphur dioxide-trading scheme developed in the United
States, climate carbon trading markets spurred by the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the Kyoto Agreement.

Yet, despite some successes, many market-inspired approaches have proved to be
less environmentally successful than command-and-control approaches. In part, this
is because of a variety of practical and contextual difficulties faced by governments
who seek to develop and rely on market mechanisms. But environmental
degradation was occurring as a consequence of a failure of markets to properly
value environmental resources (Cutting and Cahoon 2005). Although free markets
in Hayek’s theory mobilize knowledge, most market-based instruments are similar
to command-and-control instruments in their requirement for centralized planning
and knowledge, which are necessary for setting the right tax level, charge or even
cap. Setting these levels can often be difficult for policymakers in the absence of an
existing market reference or impossible to gauge at all. Neoliberalism naively
assumed that many problems that were previously thought to require direct state
intervention could instead be dealt with by some combination of deregulation,
privatization, voluntarism, outsourcing, and/or use of market mechanisms. (Trubek
and Santos, 2006; N.Gunningham and P. Grabosky (1998).

In the book “The Costs and Benefits of Environmental Regulation,” the authors, Moosa
and Ramiah, both finance experts from Australia, conducted a thorough
investigation into environmental regulation, its economic and financial effects and
the associated costs and benefits. Empirical evidence on the determinants of
environmental performance as well as the effects of environmental regulation on
the costs of production, firm-level productivity, profitability, financial risk,
employment, competitiveness, among others, was gathered. In their conclusion, the
authors said that it is essential to allocate appropriate funds to combat the
environmental damage we have inflicted on the planet.

New environmental governance (NEG) theories became vogue as a reaction to
purely market-based regulation. ‘New governance' in the context of environmental

4
protection will be treated as involving a cluster of characteristics: participatory
dialogue and deliberation, devolved decision-making, flexibility rather than
uniformity, inclusiveness, transparency, institutionalized consensus-building
practices, and a shift from hierarchy to heterarchy (Frederickson, G.H. et al. 2012).
Not all these characteristics need to be present for a particular experiment to be
regarded as involving new environmental governance, but the more characteristics
that are present, and the stronger the form in which they are present, the greater is
the claim to be regarded as falling within this category (Gunningham, 2009).

The participatory environmental assessment mandates are an example of
collaborative environmental governance and now is another significant form of
environmental law. The active participation of local stakeholders in regulatory
decision-making and monitoring processes is more likely to be sensitive to the
complexities of an environmental problem and its local context than centralized
regulatory decision-making (J. Cohen and C. Sabel, 1997; B. Karkkainen, 2001).
Unlike command-and-control regulations, which may directly limit discharges into
the environment, mandated environmental assessments protect the environment
indirectly by increasing the quantity and quality of publicly available information on
the environmental consequences of contemplated actions. This information
potentially improves the decision making of government officials and increases the
public’s involvement in the creation of environmental policy.

Over the past two decades, the environmental governance landscape has shifted
significantly, but it also remains multifaceted, covered with both new and old policy
approaches to environmental governance. A good example of this is the current
response to climate change involving not just market-based instruments, but also
hierarchy, as well as NEG approaches. In many countries, citizens have the right
either constitutionally or by law to challenge in court or before administrative
bodies government decisions affecting the environment when market-based
instruments fail. These court decisions become the CAC approach that started out as
a citizens’ initiative invoking their rights as well as rights of future generations on
the care of the environment. These citizen lawsuits have become an important
component of environmental decision making at both the national and the
international level.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines made a landmark decision on the so-called
Manila Bay cleanup on December 18, 2008. The court issued a mandamus ordering
13 government agencies “to clean up, rehabilitate and preserve Manila Bay, and
restore and maintain its waters to make them fit for swimming, skin-diving and
other forms of contact recreation.” This decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed by
concerned residents of Manila Bay in January 1999. The complaint alleged that the
quality of the Manila Bay had fallen way below the allowable standards set by law,
specifically Presidential Decree 1152 of the Philippine Environment Code. The
complainants alleged the continuing neglect of these government agencies in
abating the pollution of Manila Bay.

5

The governance of the commons or the governance of natural resources used by
many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts.
Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither
the state nor the market has been uniformly successful in solving common pool
resource problems. Common pool resources (CPR), by the nature of things, must be
owned and governed by some sort of collective institution, whether it by the state, a
corporation—or a self-organized, horizontal association of the users themselves
(Ostrom, 1990). Accordingly, it stands to reason that cooperative governance of
common pool resources, all other things being equal, will be more effective in
formulating and enforcing rules than governance by either a government agency or
a corporation. Because the individuals involved gain a major part of their economic
return from the CPRs, they are strongly motivated to try to solve common problems
to enhance their own productivity over time.

The sustainable development approach is defined as ‘meeting the needs of the
present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their needs’ (Brundtland Commission, 1987). In economic planning, it is viewed as
attempts to foster economic growth while preserving the quality of the environment
for future generations. Despite its enormous popularity in the last two decades of
the 20th century, the concept of sustainable development proved difficult to apply
in many cases, primarily because the results of long-term sustainability analyses
depend on the particular resources that are focused upon (Zwolinski, 2011).
However, supranational institutions led by the United Nations has made its avowed
goal of ‘leaving no one behind’ in achieving sustainable development goals by 2030.
It tasked national governments to make the SDGs integral in their national
development programs, policies and budgets with annual compliance reports
submitted.

The dilemma for policy makers is the choice between environmental degradation
and economic growth, as environmental regulation hurts growth but sustains the
environment and saves lives. But others contend that growth and environmental
quality are not necessarily mutually exclusive and that the choice between
environmental and economic growth is not necessarily governed by a trade-off.
Likewise in terms of policy, interaction between science and politics has undergone
institutional innovations during the past two decades, in that government-
designated expert groups and independent scientists have, to a large degree, been
incorporated within the negotiation setting in global environmental governance
(Kanie and Haas, 2014). The idea that wealth has nothing to do with the natural
environment is gravely naive. Humans are living beings requiring the food, air and
water that can only thriving ecosystems can generate. The wealthy cannot build a
sanitized dome to keep the foul air out of their rich enclaves. Perhaps they can filter
their homes to reduce particulates, but some poison eventually will get through that
even the rich will breathe along with the rest of us.

6
III. Analysis, results, conclusion and recommendations

Analysis

1. ‘Sensing’ the Solid Waste Management Act

The issue of solid waste management is one of the most serious governance
challenges affecting environmental and public health in the Philippines and around
the world. One to two thirds of solid waste generated is not properly collected and is
often dumped indiscriminately contributing to flooding and increases in pests and
disease. Solid waste generation has increased as a function of population growth
and this has become a major challenge, particularly in urban areas (Souza et al.,
2014), increasing the need for public awareness, regulations and actions to address
this issue.

The National Solid Waste Management Framework is underpinned by the Ecological
Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (known as the Republic Act No. 9003 or RA
9003). RA 9003 mandates all LGUs to (i) create a Solid Waste Management Board
(SWMB) at city and barangay levels (Section12), (ii) prepare and submit a 10 year
Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) (Section 17), (iii) establish mandatory solid
waste diversion (Section 20) (iv) establish Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) in
each barangay to increase resource recovery and composting (Section 32), and (v)
close the open dumpsites and establish sanitary landfills by 2006 (SLFs) (Section
37). (See graph below)

source: NSWMC, EMB 2015

7
While compliance in the creation of solid waste management was relatively high
among provinces (86.4%), cities/municipalities (61%) and barangays (43.2%),
operationally many of these regulatory mechanisms are not functional. Only 52% of
LGUs have submitted solid waste management plans. Less than 20 percent of the
barangays have established their materials recovery facility that can only serve
more than 40 percent of the total population. The RA 9003 mandates the closure
and rehabilitation of all dumpsites and their replacement with sanitary landfills
(SLFs). SLFs are disposal facilities with impermeable liners to prevent liquid
discharges from polluting ground and surface waters. It should also have a gas
management system to reduce risks of burning or explosion, regular soil covers to
minimize odor, and other environmental protection features. Only 317 sanitary
landfills are operating nationwide by 2014.1

According to government reports, biodegradable wastes comprise about half
(52.31%) of MSW although primary data suggest that figures can range from 30% to
as much as 78%. Typical bio-waste consists of kitchen or food waste and yard or
garden waste. From the available information, it could be estimated that 86.2% of
compostable waste comes from food scraps while 13.8% are leaves and twigs.
Recyclable wastes account for almost a third (27.78%) of MSW with an estimated
range of 4.1% to 53.3%. Plastic packaging materials comprise around 38% of this
waste fraction and followed by paper and cardboard waste, which contributes about
31%. The remaining 31% is made up of metals, glass, textile, leather and rubber.
Special wastes that consist of household healthcare waste, electrical and electronic
equipment (WEEE), bulky waste and other hazardous materials contribute a measly
1.93% with values ranging from negligible up to 9.2%. Finally, residuals have been
found to make up 17.98% of generated MSW. Most LGUs present this data as a
combination of disposable wastes as well as inert materials, which comprise about
12% of the residual waste.

Most, if not all, recyclable waste can be transformed into inputs or new products,
and this is the ecologically desirable way of a waste management approach.
However, the large quantities of non-biodegradable materials generated become a
concern if they are not properly managed and their final destination is landfills. This
is an even more worrying scenario considering that some of these materials can
take hundreds of years to decompose (Brown, 2015; Halden, 2010). According to
Brown (2015), MSW generation is not simply a product of society, it is related to the
level of development and rates of social and economic change within that society,
and the form adopted by it in order to achieve modernity.

2. “Sensing” the Growing Global Plastic Pollution

The difficulty of governing plastic has been rising as production accelerates,
consumption globalizes, pollution sources diversify, international trade deflects
responsibility, and governments lack the political will to decisively address the

1 National Solid Waste Management Status Report (2008-2014), NSWMC-EMB-DENR (2015)

8
problem. As pressures and complexities mount, the global governance of plastic –
characterized by fragmented authority, weak international institutions, uneven
regulations, uncoordinated policies, and market-driven solutions – is failing to rein
in marine plastic pollution. In large part, this governance landscape reflects industry
efforts to resist government regulation, skirts accountability, and demonizes critics,
coupled with a ‘well-oiled’ advocacy of corporate self-regulation and consumer
responsibility as principles of governance (Dauvergne, 2018).

The battle to ban plastics will go against some of the most powerful corporate
interests on the planet, including the oil majors and chemical giants that produce
the building blocks for our modern plastic world and consumer giants that package
their products in plastic. The plastic industry isn’t a single entity. It’s more like a
corporate super-group of oil, soda and tobacco that litter trillions of plastic cigarette
butts in the environment every year. And it combines the lobbying and public
relations might of all three industries.2 In the US, a proposed federal bill, Break Free
From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020, authored by Senator Tom Udall is a far-reaching
measure that would ban many single-use plastics and force corporations to finance
“end of life” programs to keep plastic out of the environment. In a 2015 study
released by the United Nations, the Philippines was found to be the third biggest
source of plastic waste in oceans globally, accounting for 5.9% of total mismanaged
plastic waste in the world's seas. Data from the 2015 study "Plastic waste inputs
from land into the ocean" shows that the Philippines wastes 6,237,653 kg (6875.84
tons) of plastic per day, of which 81% is mismanaged. This despite the country
having passed its Solid Waste Management Act in 2000 and other anti-pollution
laws.3

In the Philippines, the typology of plastics has been conducted as part of the waste
assessment tools to monitor solid waste disposal. The commonly used plastic
packaging includes plastic sando shopping bags, semi-transparent or plastic labo
bags, flexibles, multi-layer packaging, and sachets. Plastic sando shopping bags refer
to shopping bags with handles, often used to hold groceries. Several cities have
started regulating plastic sando bag use, but others have kept exemptions for non-
recyclable alternatives like oxo-degradable plastic bags and non-woven
polypropylene bags. Plastic labo bags refer to very thin (around 5 microns in
thickness) semi-transparent plastic bags without handles that are used to wrap
produce, meat, fish, and cooked food. Plastic labo bags are often included in the
exemption list in plastic regulations due to lack of cheap alternatives for primary
food packaging. Multi-layer packaging and sachets are sealed packaging made from
lightweight plastic composite and are used as packaging for single-serve or small
amounts of food and non-food items.


2 Dickinson, T. “Plastic Planet,” Rolling Store (March 2020)

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/plastic-problem-recycling-myth-big-oil-
950957/
3 https://business.inquirer.net/270819/solid-waste-mismanagement-in-the-philippines

9
Other single-use plastic products include plastic water bottles made with
polythylene terephthalate (PET); harder plastic bottles used for shampoo or milk
made with high-density polyethylene (HDPE); grocery bags and food packaging
made with low-density polyethylene; and plastic cutlery made with polystyrene
(PS) among others. The most common type of plastic found in the environment is
cigarette butts, which contain tiny plastic fibers. Others are PET bottles, bottle caps,
food wrappers, bag, drink lids, straws and stirrers. Although repurposing these
materials have continuously been encouraged, the UN report stated that only 9% of
all plastic waste ever produced has been recycled. About 12% has been incinerated,
while the rest — 79% — has accumulated in landfills, dumps or the natural
environment. Filipinos use more than 163 million plastic sachet packets, 48 million
sando bags and 45 million labo bags daily. These numbers were revealed in report
released by environmental organization Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
(GAIA) before the UNEP report came out. The group contends that single-use
disposable plastic is the greatest obstacle to sound waste and resource
management, and is calling on governments and manufacturers to regulate, and stop
producing, single-use plastics.4

Results:

1. Addressing policy gaps through an integrated and sustainable waste
management framework

The analysis above shows how cities and municipalities in the Philippines and
globally are struggling against plastic residuals. Despite efforts on the part of many
localities to institute Zero Waste programs, they still struggle with plastics that
prevent them from achieving Zero Waste goals. With the projected increase in
plastic production worldwide, including in the Philippines, national governments, as
well as local government authorities need robust data and effective strategies to
address the looming plastic pollution crisis. Data shows that the sheer volume of
plastic waste generated daily is beyond the capacity of barangays, cities and
municipalities to manage, and that the only way to manage single-use plastic is to
make less of it. Plastic is a pollution problem that starts as soon as it is made and
disposed. Cleanup is left to cities and municipalities who use taxpayers’ money to
deal with the waste. Companies create the waste in the form of plastic sachets and
other small packaging with their brand logos and profit from these in millions
without being made accountable.

With the absence of a national policy on plastics, some local governments in the
Philippines have instituted plastic bag regulations. A study (Braganza, 2017) that
looked into the implementation of the Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance in Quezon
City from 2012-2016, a policy that mainly aimed to regulate the use of plastic bags

4 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia-waste-philippines/slave-to-sachets-how-poverty-
worsens-the-plastics-crisis-in-the-philippines-idUSKCN1VO0G3

10
as packaging, showed good intent and high awareness level. It attempted to
determine the perceived and actual impact of the ordinance on different
stakeholders, and the factors that influence its implementation. The study also
investigated the collection and use of the green fund as compensatory mechanism. It
showed that while awareness is high about the regulation, there are still gaps in the
implementation of the ordinance.

The country thus needs a comprehensive framework in addressing the policy gaps
in our environmental regulatory policy on solid waste management passed two
decades ago. The objective is to come up with a comprehensive framework that
addresses the future challenges of rapid urbanization and climate change now. In a
comparative analysis of waste management done in 20 major cities published by the
UN-Habitat Third Global Report on Water and Sanitation in the World Cities (2010),
an integrated and sustainable waste management ‘lens’ was used as an approach
(IJgosse et al., 2004; Schübeler, 1996; Van de Klundert and Anschütz, 2001; Rodic, L.
2010). This approach came up with key insights that include the following: presence
of variety and diversity of successful models – there is no ‘one size fits all’; the
necessity of good, reliable data; the importance of focusing on governance as well as
technology; and the need to build on the existing strengths of the local government.
Another highlight of said study pointed out the critical role of the informal sector
especially in developing countries. The sector not only delivers recycling rates that
are comparable with systems in developed countries, but also saves the authorities
money in avoided waste collection and disposal costs. This provides the opportunity
for win–win solutions, so long as the related environmental governance challenges
are addressed: public health and collection; environment and disposal; and resource
recovery which is ‘closing the loop’ and returning both materials and nutrients to
beneficial use, through preventing waste and striving for high rates of reuse,
materials recycling and organics recovery. These insights are valuable inputs in the
review of our regulatory framework on solid waste management.

1. Public health and collection

Public health is about maintaining healthy conditions in cities through a good waste
collection service. In economic terms, SWM is a merit good – i.e. a good, or rather a
service, deemed so important, in this case for public health reasons, that the law
requires that it is provided for the benefit of the entire society, regardless of the
interest of the market to supply it or the users’ ability (or willingness) to pay for it.
This means that the role of the government needs to be strong, if not directly
providing for it, then in regulation, of the services provided by the private sector. It
is also practically impossible to exclude non-payers, as the service is prone to ‘free-
rider’ behavior. For such reasons, cost recovery from paying users – although
considered important – is not the central feature of financial management (Rodic et
al., 2010).

Primary collection services are commonplace in low- and middle-income cities – the
waste is collected directly from households and taken either to communal collection

11
points or to small transfer stations, where the waste is transported in larger vehicles
to the disposal point. Primary collection is often contracted directly by the
householder with individual informal or community-based, service providers for a
small fee, whereas the secondary collection services, while generally organized by
the city authorities, they are contracted out to the private sector. But this collection
services at source and recovery can be handled efficiently by the informal sector if
properly organized.

Concern over the possible human health effects, resulting from exposure to
hazardous substances disposed to landfill sites, has driven the need for the
application of risk assessment to such scenarios. Particularly of concern is the fact
that existing hazardous waste sites may not have been designed with sufficiently
preventative considerations for human health or the environment in mind. The
requirement, therefore, is to carry out risk assessments on a site-specific basis with
the objective of determining the risks to which the human population and the
environment are exposed. It is also possible and desirable to include risk
assessment in the design process and planning stage of future disposal sites. Local
governments should have controlled disposal sites that indicates a disposal site with
a minimum degree of management, consisting of gate control, fencing and waste
placement, which reduces the potential of water, soil and air pollution, and is widely
advocated as a significant first step to a modernize system of sound environmental
control (Petts and Edulgee, 1994).

2. Environment and disposal

The population will always generate waste, but good decisions regarding what
constitutes rubbish (i.e. avoiding wastage), minimizing the quantity generated and
the implementation of appropriate management practices by the authorities, are
critical elements to executing policies. Behavior and attitudes in waste management
are malleable and change over time influenced by a collective good and those in
power exercise the way leadership. Such behavioral change also challenges us to
look at waste as a resource right from the start.

High recycling (valorization) rates generally require the processing of both dry
recyclable and organic materials, although individual cities may focus on one or the
other. Quezon City for example relies for its high rate (39%) on dry recyclables – in
this case, 24% is clean, source-separated materials, which are bought by itinerant
waste buyers (IWBs). The IWBs in the Philippines are employed by local informal
sector junk-shops, who in turn are organized by a local NGO, Metro Manila Linis-
Ganda (Wilson 2012). Material recovery in the high-income country cities is
entirely carried out by the ‘formal’ sector, whereas in the low-income countries, the
activity is predominantly in the informal sector; the middle-income cities are
between these two extremes.

It was reported that in Ankara, Turkey, as an example, scavengers collect and sell to
middle men about 50% of the recyclables wastes produced by households,

12
commerce and trade that yield a total amount of USD 50,000/day. Furthermore, in
Delhi’s waste management system at least 150,000 waste pickers divert more than
25% of all waste generated into recyclables. This management system saves the
municipal authorities substantial costs.

Treatment technology of organic waste has gotten a boost with the use of a pest
called the black soldier fly: Hermetia illucens, which is an important as well as
feasible and sustainable treatment option. Likewise, valorization of organic matter
solid waste can be accomplished via composting and anaerobic digestion that can
then be sold as organic compost. The advantage of producing compost is the
technical simplicity of the process. To cover part of the integrated solid waste
management strategies costs, it was found that valorizing and recycling activities,
has turned into a valuable income stream.

A waste disposal system that is portrayed as practical given the rising volume of
solid waste is that of incineration or pyrolysis through the construction of waste-to-
energy (WTE) facilities. This system is widely promoted especially in developing
countries using ‘new technologies’ that are supposedly non-hazardous. However, it
is known that these incineration plants for municipal waste generate highly toxic
pollutants like furan and dioxin. If pursued as a major policy, experts believe that
this becomes a one-way-street: due to the high initial and operating cost,
incineration goes against more sustainable waste treatment strategies such as
reduction and recycling, and since the facilities need to be continuously fed large
amounts of residue for combustion in order to cover their expenses thus the need to
produce more waste (Zhao Zhangyuan 2010; Bondes, 2010). The Philippines
likewise has passed a Clean Air Act that bans incineration. Some experts suggest
that the WTE proposal is designed as a scam in which we have to consume more in
order to feed these plants. Likewise, you need more energy to burn the waste than
the energy it produces especially in tropical countries where landfills are wet most
of the time. In the end, it is the households who would bear the cost through high
‘tipping fees’ in garbage collection (Dr. Paul Connett, 2013).

3. Resource recovery

In resource recovery which the terms of pricing for solid waste disposal is crucial,
there are indications that high rates of recovery for recycling are associated with
tipping fees at the site of disposal. High disposal pricing has the positive effect on
recovering the generated solid waste (Scheinberg et al 2010). This goes to the
beneficial reuse or the value chains of solid waste. It was mentioned that social
influences, altruistic and regulatory factors are important reasons why certain
communities can develop strong recycling habits. People who frequently go to
dispose their general refuse in the bins are more likely to recycle certain products at
home. In most cases, as the distance to the recycling bins decreases, the number of
fractions that people separate, sort and collect their solid waste at home increases
(Gonzalez-Torre and Adenso-Diaz, 2010). The study added that in order to increase
the recycling rates, the local government must encourage the markets for the

13
recycled materials and should increase the professionals in the recycling companies.
Further important factors were mentioned by other scholars including a financial
support for different recycling projects, to support the infrastructure of the
recycling companies in their country (Minghua et al 2010). There should be drop-off
and buy back centers and suggested organizing informal sector for solid waste
recycling (Sharholy et al. 2010). The key difference from formal SWM recycling in
high-income countries is that the informal sector is entirely market driven – their
only income is from selling the materials that they collect, separate and perhaps also
add value to (e.g. through cleaning, accumulating larger quantities, densification or
further processing). Waste them becomes a resource that is governed by the
commons.

There are examples of strong political commitment and leadership showing tangible
results, but also that of weak and disinterested institutions with accompanying poor
performance of the SWM system. But having a good data collection and management
system is important as a key component for a policy framework. It is a familiar
saying that ‘If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it’. Without proper data
collection and management systems, it is difficult to be accountable and transparent,
or to make sound strategies and budget for them. If knowledge is power, then a city
without knowledge of its solid waste system may lack the power to make positive
changes. So, the quality of waste data in a city could be viewed as a proxy measure
for the quality of its overall management system, of the degree of commitment of the
city, or even of the city governance system itself.

The importance of data is highlighted by the GAIA report which lays out several
recommendations for the Philippine government to effectively address plastic
pollution, including the following: standardizing disaggregated data on plastic
packaging in waste assessments, as well as including brand information;5 instituting
comprehensive national plastic bag ban and the regulation of other single-use
plastic products; mandating companies to redesign products, packaging and
delivery systems; and strengthening the ban on waste incineration. Manufacturing
corporations have to be transparent about the plastic packaging they produce,
assume accountability and liability for their packaging, and immediately stop
producing throwaway plastic packaging.

5 Civil society groups have come up with a waste assessment and brand audit (WABA) tool that
involves mobilizing people and communities. This after the traditional waste assessment and
characterization surveys (WACS) done by government do not distinguish between the different types
of plastic packaging, preventing effective policy making for their proper management. As a tool,
WABAs help 1) expose the role of specific corporations in the global proliferation of plastic waste; 2)
unmask how the industry has passed on the blame for the waste they produce to the consumers of
their products, and the responsibility for clean-up of their packaging to governments; and 3)
reinforce the need for corporations to accept liability for the full life-cycle impacts of their products
and the packaging in which their products are sold.

14
The environmental, health and economic costs of plastic bags are widely-known and
unchallenged: among others, they block drainages, sewers, canals and cause
flooding, kill marine and land animals, are a sore eye particularly in tourism and
coastal areas, waterways and public spaces, and take up valuable space in waste
disposal facilities where they will persist for hundreds of years. In addition, the
production and distribution of plastic bags contribute significantly to climate
change. Because of these negative effects, hundreds of measures around the world
have been taken since 2002—the year when the first national ban on plastic bags
was enacted in Bangladesh—to reduce or regulate their usage.6

Conclusion and Recommendations

1. Ban on single use plastics as national policy

In late 2019, President Duterte was reported to be eyeing to impose a ban on the use
of plastics in the entire country. The President made the pitch for plastic ban days
after he and other Southeast Asian leaders committed to step up efforts to combat
marine debris pollution during a summit in Thailand. The leaders have recognized
that marine debris remained a global concern and that regional collaboration must
be intensified to curb ocean pollution.7

At present, two bills seeking to ban single-use plastic are pending in the Senate. Sen.
Francis Pangilinan has filed Senate Bill 40 that bans importation, manufacture and
use of all single-use plastics and proposed that those who violate this would be
penalized and those who re-use and recycle would receive incentives. Sen Cynthia
Villar also filed Senate Bill No. 333 or the Single-Use Plastic Product Regulation Act
of 2019. The issuance of the single-use plastics by food establishments, markets and
retailers would be prohibited. In the House of Representatives, the committee on
natural resources was tasked to deliberate on several bills filed banning plastics.
Chaired by Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., he assured the public that they would
immediately act on the bills, considering the negative impact of plastics to the
environment and even public health. However, the House only approved a bill for a
higher tax on single use plastic bags but not on all single-use plastics.8

Defining single-use plastic is the first step in the direction of doing away with such
products. Likewise, viable alternatives and their accessibility have to be ensured to
balance costs and benefits. Likewise, the potential employment loss could be offset
with new jobs from the environmental services sector arising from regulation. It
can also boost tourism and sustainable development goals at the local and national
levels. The ‘early-mover’ advantage to firms that create products that would be in

6 Plastic bag backlash gains momentum - BBC News - BBC.com, https://www.bbc.com › news
Sep 14, 2013
7 https://www.bworldonline.com › duterte-signals-plan-to-regulate-plastic-pollution/ Nov 7, 2019
8 “House panel OKs bill taxing single-use plastic,” 12/10/2019
https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2019/12/10/Plastic-bag-tax.html

15
demand in the near future due to regulation can also be incentivized (Porter, 1990).
Any initiative to ban the use of plastics have to be mandatory, otherwise it won’t be
sustainable as gleaned from a study on the 10-year old plastic bag tax in Dublin,
Ireland (Convery F., 2013), in San Francisco (Morris and Christensen, 2014) and
Seattle (Lilly, 2012). What is needed are national policies and strong regulations
that would ban single use plastics and hold corporations accountable for their role
in perpetuating decades of plastic pollution are thus needed. Cities and
municipalities in the country have taken the initiative to impose regulations on
single-use plastic and Congress must do its part before we all drown in our own pile
of garbage.

Cities in the National Capital Region like Makati, Quezon City, Pasig, Muntinlupa, Las
Piñas, and Pasay have already said no to plastic. Outside Metro Manila, more local
government units are following suit. We are hoping that we shall soon solve our
plastic problem because of their examples. Los Baños, Laguna has already been
doing it since June 2008. The university town is one of the first—if not the very
first—to enforce a ban on single-use plastics as packaging materials for dry and wet
goods. Other places include popular tourist destinations like Boracay in Aklan after
its closure; El Nido, Palawan; Pilar in Siargao island, Surigao del Norte; Baguio city,
Bacolod City, Cebu City; San Fernando, La Union; and several towns of Pangasinan.

We can fight back against plastic pollution using data from waste assessments and
brand audits. LGUs can then strengthen regulations, improve waste management
services, and reduce waste volume and corresponding management costs. They can
also use the data to pursue plastic bans or regulations, and to compel companies to
acknowledge their liability for plastic pollution. A Social Weather Station Survey
conducted in 2019 showed that majority of Filipinos support a ban on plastics.9
Another local government in Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur has even pushed if
further by declaring the locality as a sustainable organic agriculture town, the first
to do so in the country. The LGU called for a ‘change in mindset’ rejecting
consumerism and hedonistic living. Its policies are well received by the people as
the mayor and his whole team has been successively re-elected on such platform up
to the present (Local Government Academy, 2013).

Incentivizing companies to address the plastic waste problem at their end instead of
passing on the responsibility to consumers is seen as a viable alternative. China’s
Circular Economy Promotion Law, for one, extends tax preferences to industrial
activities that try to maximize the reuse and recycling of plastic waste. The
European Union’s Circular Economy Package, which targets small and medium
enterprises, has an allotment of 2.3 billion euros ($2.6 billion) for investments in
waste-conversion technology and applications. In UK, the government committed to
eliminate avoidable plastic waste by 2042, and set aside £61 million to do it. Waste
management is integral to the achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals

9 https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/01/22/20/sws-7-out-of-10-filipinos-ok-with-nationwide-ban-
on-single-use-plastic

16
from eliminating poverty and hunger, good health and well-being, clean water and
sanitation, to having sustainable cities and communities.

2. Environmental governance as new governance

We have seen that waste has been increasing exponentially to the point of
irreversible damage to the environment. Environmental governance approaches
from command and control, market-based, and cost-benefit analysis forms of
environmental regulation, and a combination of all these approaches under a ‘new
environmental governance,’ point to the need for aggressive measures to address
this high-risk hazard now. It needs citizens’ participation, strong accountability
mechanisms, and evidence-based policy. People need to understand and be part of
how decisions related to the environment are made and whether resultant policies
and processes lead to environmentally and socially sustainable outcomes.

The macroeconomic effects of a plastics ban regulation on employment, trade and
competitiveness show that it would not exert a negative effect as studies of cities
that banned plastics indicate. On the contrary, it might boost employment, net
exports, and competitiveness. The initiatives to ban plastics from ecotourism areas
point to a positive effect of regulation as more tourists are expected to come
boosting the local economy without harming their natural environment while using
access fees to preserve and maintain it. Complementary to such policy banning
single use plastics, resource recovery is an important policy arena to focus for
sustainability, as waste becomes a ‘common pool resource’ of the commons. With
neither the state nor the market being uniformly successful in solving solid waste
disposal, the treatment of this as CPR by the nature of things, must be owned and
governed by some sort of collective institution like a self-organized, horizontal
association of the ‘users’ themselves. It is a major source of income especially for
the informal sector that constitutes a big majority of the population in urban areas.
Incentivizing the informal sector through provision of capital, equipment and
location for setting up recovery facilities to add value (e.g. cleaning, repair and
reuse, accumulating larger quantities, densification or further processing). Being a
merit good in economic terms, we redefine the meaning of waste to a ‘resource’ that
has to be sustainably managed in ‘governing the commons.’

Public realization of reducing plastic waste is rising with high-profile scientific
documentaries as well as the use of social media. Plastic pollution is having a
dramatic visual and physical impact on the planet damaging marine life and
entering into our food chain. It has also grown at an alarming rate. We only began
using plastic around 60 years ago, and now the scale of the issue is dramatic – with
around 12 million tons of plastic entering the world’s oceans every year and almost
8.3 billion ton of plastic waste on the planet, much of which is in landfills. We,
humans, are conducting a singular uncontrolled experiment on a global scale in
which billions of metric tons of pollutant will accumulate across all major terrestrial
and aquatic ecosystems on the planet. All of us are guinea pigs in this experiment, as

17
plastics accumulate in the food web, ingested by fishes that we eat, in table salt, and
ironically even in bottled water.

Citizens’ participation in environmental governance is important and helpful to
exact accountability and to raise awareness. Consumers, business and market
regulators have to work together in order to create or crowd source ideas that will
make innovative and disruptive changes, such as further development of
biodegradable materials, the search to enhance the recyclability of plastic, or the
cultivation of a better waste management system with stakeholders from the
informal sector. The release of plastics into the sea is certainly a serious
environmental issue that can be effectively addressed only through collaborative
governance that combine efforts of the three main stakeholders: ordinary citizens
and consumers through more eco-friendly behaviors, scientists by filling knowledge
gaps, and policymakers by passing conservation laws relying on prevention and
scientific evidence.

Evidence-based policy is critical for government so it can demand compliance and
impose sanctions without being burdened by the politics of regulation. Others insist
that regulation is still a critically important measure, as it will drive innovation so
that recyclability becomes a top goal of product design. In summary, a mindset
change is needed from that of a linear economy (where materials are thrown away
after being used) to a circular economy (where these materials would be redesigned
or reused for the manufacture of other products) as a strategic policy alternative.

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