Retail Stores Must Implement Plastic Bag Collection and Recycling Program

A lawmaker has filed a bill requiring retail stores that provide plastic bags to consumers to implement a plastic bag collection and recycling program.

Rep. Estrellita B. Suansing (1st District, Nueva Ecija) said under the program proposed in House Bill 5379, a plastic carry-out bag collection bin shall be placed in each store and shall be visible, easily accessible to the consumer, and clearly marked that the collection bin is available for the purpose of collecting and recycling plastic carry-out bags. These plastic bags shall then be collected, transported and recycled.

To show compliance, the store shall maintain records describing the collection, transport and recycling of plastic carry-out bags collected for a minimum of three years and shall make the records available to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) or the Local Government Unit (LGU) concerned, Suansing said.

Suansing said it is a known fact that plastic bags contaminate soil and waterways. These are harmful to humans and animals alike, especially when accidentally ingested, she added.

“Plastic bags have been around for half a century, and no doubt one of the most useful inventions of our time. This time, however, the disadvantageous use of plastic bags has outweighed their benefits,” Suansing stressed.

According to Suansing, every year, four to five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide, with billions of bags ending up as litter. About 430,000 gallons of oil are needed to produce 100 million non-biodegrable plastic bags and these bags take hundreds to thousand of years to disintegrate.

Moreover, plastic bags contribute, sometimes even magnify, the damage caused by natural calamities that hit the country. One of the major causes of the massive flooding that is experienced by the country during the rainy season is the huge amount of garbage that block water drainage, Suansing said.

Under the bill to be known as the “Plastic Bag Recycling Act,” stores that provide plastic carry-out bags to consumers as part of a purchase at retail shall establish an in-store recycling program that provides an opportunity for consumers of the store to return to the store the plastic carry-out bags.

A retail establishment that does not meet the definition of a store as proposed in the measure that provides plastic carry-out bags to consumers at the point of sale may also adopt an in-store recycling program.

As defined under the bill, store means a retail establishment that has gross sales of over P100, 000.00 each month that provides plastic carry-out bags to its consumers as a result of the sale of a product.

Under the bill, an in-store recycling program provided by the operator of a store shall include a plastic carry-out bag provided by the store shall have printed or displayed on the bag, in a manner visible to a consumer, the words “PLEASE RETURN TO A PARTICIPATING STORE FOR RECYCLING.”

The operator of the store shall make reusable bags available to consumers within the store, which may be purchased and used in lieu of using a plastic carry-out bag or paper bag.

The measure imposes a penalty of P100, 000 for first time offender, P200, 000 for the second offense and P300, 000 for the third and subsequent violations upon stores violating this Act.

The civil penalties to be collected shall be paid to the LGU where the store is located and to the Environmental Protection Fund to be used by the LGU.

Source: Media Relations Service, Public Relations and Information Bureau