BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Donogan urged the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC) to study the possibility of issuing a directive totally banning the manufacture of non-biodegradable plastic in the country to help in the government’s all-out campaign to significantly reduce the volume of garbage that pollute the environment.
Domogan made the call to the NSWMC during the opening program of the 3-day Cordillera Environment Summit organized by the Cordillera office of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB-CAR) last Wednesday at the Hotel Elizabeth.
The local chief executive underscored that the primary non-biodegradable waste being collected by garbage collectors in the city’s 128 barangays is plastic that is why there is a need for the concerned government agencies to formulate the needed rules and regulations that will prohibit the manufacture of plastic that will definitely help in reducing the supply of the said material being widely patronized by people because of convenience.
However, in coming out with the pertinent regulations governing the use of alternative packaging materials, he reminded the NSWMC that aggressively promoting the use of paper bags and other packaging materials that are produced from papers might be also disadvantageous to the environment because it will result to the rampant cutting of trees considering that paper is one of the products from trees, thus, it will render the government’s effort to regreen the country’s denuded forests.
“We remain optimistic that concerned government agencies will be able to issue the appropriate rules and regulations in the manufacture of plastic to help local governments in significantly addressing the huge volume of plastic being produced by our constituents and for the people to be empowered to embrace the use of other biodegradable materials for their daily use,” Domogan stressed.
According to him, the preservation and protection of the environment is one of the flagship programs of all local governments because local officials want the present and future generations of people to enjoy the fruits of a well preserved ecology.
He rallied concerned stakeholders to cooperate in the policies, programs and projects being implemented by the government in ensuring the proper preservation and protection of the environment because it will be very difficult if it will be the environment that will make its wrath against mankind considering that it will lead to heavy losses in lives and serious damage to properties.
He claimed that the conduct of the annual Cordillera Environment Summit is a laudable endeavour of the EMB-CAR and the whole family of the environment department because it will keep the concerned sectors of society updated on the latest trends and the status of the region’s environment after the aggressive implementation of planned initiatives geared towards the preservation and protection of nature which is the primary source of life of the people.
The Cordillera has been tagged as the watershed cradle of Northern and parts of Central Luzon because it is the source of abundant supply of water used for domestic, agriculture, irrigation, power generation and industrial purposes.
By Dexter A. See
