MANILA, Philippines – In a new step to fight plastic pollution, the Philippine government, through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), is linking manufacturers, private companies, and civil society organizations to develop a national roadmap within 2025.
While this platform, called the National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP), focuses on addressing the plastic crisis locally and providing baseline data, it could aid the Philippines as the last round of the plastic treaty negotiations comes around.
“Hopefully, with this baseline data, we can strengthen our position in the plastic treaty discussion because we cannot really implement or enforce activities as proposed by the treaty if we don’t have the capacity to implement it,” Environment Undersecretary Jonas Leones said in a press briefing on Thursday, January 23.
Aside from the roadmap and baseline data, the platform seeks to channel funds to support various plastic reduction initiatives.
More than 100 nations gathered in Busan, South Korea, last November to create a legally binding treaty to tackle the plastic crisis. They failed to reach an agreement, and talks are set to resume this year.
As of 2024, 19 countries, including the Philippines’ ASEAN neighbors Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Indonesia, have established NPAPs. The network is supported by the World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership, which is active in international plastic talks.
In the Philippines, the plastic problem comes in distinctive packaging: sachets. Of the 61,000 metric tons of solid waste the country generates daily, 12% to 24% are plastic waste, Leones said during the launch of the NPAP on Thursday.
And in a day, Filipinos utilize more than 163 million plastic sachets. This tingi culture has long been acknowledged by concerned sectors, with groups like Greenpeace linking with local governments to install refill hubs.
According to Floradema Eleazar, lead of the Climate Action Team of the United Nations Development Programme, the initial target to release the anti-plastic roadmap is in August 2025. – Rappler.com