The Philippines is Turning the Tide on Plastic Waste

The Philippines, long one of the biggest producers of oceanic plastic waste, is now moving quickly and boldly to tackle this crisis.

Over the last year, Manila has rolled out one of the world's most ambitious laws on extended producer responsibility (EPR).

EPR rules, which hold manufacturers accountable for managing waste resulting from their products and encourage a circular economy, are a key topic of discussion among negotiators working on a U.N. plastics treaty.

There are already well-established EPR regimes in a number of developed markets, including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. These typically involve government-funded collection and sorting of plastic waste.

U.N. treaty negotiators, who met last month in Ottawa, Canada, need to move as boldly as Philippine legislators if a practical solution is to be found to stem the tide of plastic production and clean up the more than 9 billion tons of legacy plastic waste that threatens our planet today.

Half of the top 10 countries ranking as the biggest contributors to plastic leakage into rivers and seas are in Southeast Asia. The Philippines and Indonesia, both archipelago nations made up of thousands of islands, are at the epicenter of this crisis. The challenges faced by these ecologically vulnerable and geographically disadvantaged developing countries must be addressed in the plastics treaty.

The Philippines alone consumes over 2.15 million metric tons of plastic each year. Just 9% of that is recycled, while a whopping 35% makes its way into the environment, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

The move by consumer products companies to offer products such as shampoo and cosmetics in small plastic pouches to make them more affordable to lower-income populations has resulted in an explosion of low-value plastic that is nearly impossible to recycle and contributes to leakage from landfills into waterways.