Partial Effectiveness of Reusable Bags
First things first, reusable bags cost much more to the consumers. And if a family buys three bags of groceries each week, that would be an expense of P105 for the bags. Who makes money? The grocery stores who sold these reusable bags. They will also save money from free plastic bags.
Second, reusable bags will not fully remove plastic bags. Would you rather place your fresh meats in reusable bags? That would be unhygienic as well as foolhardy to do.
Plastics Bags Can Be Reused
Whoever said that plastic bags cannot be reused needs to check his facts. In fact, plastic bags have more uses at home than the supposedly reusable bags. A plastic bag can be used to cover smaller garbage bins, and can protect leftover juices from getting out until pickup time.
Paper Bags
If biodegradability is the issue here, why not use the paper bags of old. Old stores used the familiar brown paper bag when packing customer purchases. Some even use newspapers. To be honest about it, it is the large grocery stores who started the practice of using plastic bags.
So why not use paper bags instead? They are biodegradable, and with enough thickness, can even contain fresh meats.
Real Issue
The real issue here is not reusability of the grocery bag but effective information campaign about responsible disposal of plastics among other garbage materials as well as seriousness of concerned agencies in cleaning up our surroundings.
Even if we remove plastic-bags use in groceries, which cannot be done because of the fresh meat problem, households and business institutions will still be buying plastic garbage bags to protect their garbage bins. Without plastic, no other materials can protect us from the bacteria-growing nature of most biodegradable leftovers at home and in certain industries.
The main source of the plastic disposal problem are areas in our community where garbage disposal disciplines are nil. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) must instead focus their efforts in educating these segments in the community and closely monitor their behaviors in order to teach them proper plastic disposal. Instead of penalizing the consumers with purchased plastic bags that only sellers make money of, DENR must learn to recognize that not all plastics are bad to the environment.
And forget about "Reusable Bag Day." It only add more expense to Juan dela Cruz. Either use paper or go straight where the problem with plastic waste disposal really exist.
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