MANAGING PLASTIC WASTE AND THE ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS - Agnes C. Rola, Ph.D.

RA 9003 (or the Ecological Solid Waste Management (SWM) Act) enacted in 2001 in the Philippines was a landmark policy whose salient provisions include mandatory segregation of waste at the household level with collection vehicles having the appropriate compartments for the sorted wastes; the establishment of recycling centers or the Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) at every barangay nationwide. [...] the sorted wastes; the establishment of recycling The Philippine situation mirrors the global trend in centers, the Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) at increasing waste generation and even at a faster every barangay nationwide; the preparation of 10- rate [2]. [...] Low performance is due to lack of capacity building, in understanding the provisions of the The most important factor affecting the law, and formulating SWM plans; lack of fund increasing volume of solid waste in the country, especially plastics, is the “sachet culture”. [...] However, at the national level, the passage of RA 9003 (or the Ecological Solid Waste As of Sept 2017, 1460 SWM plans Management Act) in 2001[6] was a landmark Local SWM were submitted to the EMB as the policy because of its integrated approach to solid plans NSWMC Secretariat, waste management, including plastics. [...] The author would like to thank the National Academy of Science and Technology PHL (NAST PHL) for the research fellowship to prepare this paper and to the Emerging Interdisciplinary Research (EIDR) program of the University of the Philippines System (OVPAA- EIDR-2-003-121010), for the use of the project data.