The Negative Effect of Single Use Plastic

One of the largest producers of plastic wastes in Asia is the Philippines. According to PhilStar Global (2018), about 79 percent of branded plastic residual wastes came from food packaging, followed by household and personal care products with 12 and eight percent, respectively. One of the solutions that the researchers have in mind to minimize producing plastic waste is the banning of single-use plastic. The researchers envision their campus free from single-use plastic and free from its harmful effects on the environment and on their health.

The researchers want to assess the effects of banning single-use plastic in Isabela National High School in the behavior of INHSians and the awareness of INHSians on the effects of Plastic in the environment.

Assessment of the effects of regulating the use of plastic bags as packaging material in commercial establishments in Los Banos, Laguna (Philippines) 

Delos Reyes (2011) assessed the perception and level of compliance of the residents and owners of commercial establishments in Los Banos, Laguna, the Philippines on the implementation of Municipal Ordinance 2008-752 that prohibits the use of plastic bags on dry goods and restricts its use on wet goods. It also determined the ordinance’s effect on the profits of the commercial sector and the buying habits of the residents. It was found out that all of the household respondents and the commercial establishments were aware of the ordinance, however, only 86% of the commercial establishments and less than half of the household respondents were fully compliant. Further, it was revealed that compliance is affected by gender, educational attainment, level of income, and age of the household respondents. Firms’ compliance on the other hand is affected by the type of goods sold. Household respondents’ buying habits were also altered as they shifted their preference to buy from wet markets to supermarkets, changed product preference and the number of visits to the markets. In addition, 24% of the firms reported having experienced an increase in their profit due mainly to the reduction of packaging costs. The reduction in the municipality’s solid wastes generation cannot however be solely attributed to the implementation of the ordinance as it was concurrently implemented with the segregation and recycling program.

Economic effects of municipal ordinance 2008-752 in Los Banos, Laguna

The study of Alfred Benjamin R.Garcia revealed that while the exact effect of the ordinance on the waste generation of the municipality has not yet been isolated, the ordinance is cost-effective because the commercial establishments have reduced their expenses on the packaging due tp this policy’s implementation, thus, having a significant positive effect ordinance varied with their gender, educational attainment and age while the commercial establishment’s compliance varied with the kinds of goods the offered. This means that the municipal government should increase its effort in encouraging the different groups to abide by the ordinance especially those who have identified to have a lower probability of compliance.

Doing away with plastic shopping bags: international patterns of norm emergence and policy implementation

The rapid and widespread emergence of an anti-plastic shopping bag norm and associated regulatory policies around the world in recent years forces are thinking of current understandings of norm dynamics and policy implementation. The patterns of this movement are explored and characterized as a South to North, non-networked, and multi-scalar series of events that together represent a globally significant emergence of a new environmental norm. It also shows that differences in policy outcomes as a response to this norm in different countries and at different jurisdictional levels are in many ways linked to the influence of material interests in the interpretation of the norm into policy. These variations in domestic norm interpretation in turn influence international norm dynamics

In Bangladesh, the plastics industry was weak in all three facets of power, particularly in comparison to the structural and instrumental power of the jute industry with which it competes for packaging. There was a synergy between an emergent environmental norm and the material interests of an established, but ailing, national industry which highlights the importance of the domestic environment to policy adoption. The result was a total ban on plastic bags, taken at the national level.

In the US, legislative responses to the emergence of the anti-plastic bag norm also demonstrate the role industry resistance has played in shaping policy. Industry’s strong structural power at the national level is likely to prevent national-level legislation, which has focused campaign efforts at the municipal level instead. Industry’s discursive efforts have had only partial success in presenting a competing norm (recycling and reuse) in an attempt to prevent municipalities from seeking to promote anti-bag legislation. At the same time, the industry has used its instrumental power to bring or threaten 328 J. Clapp and L. Swanston multiple lawsuits against municipalities in an attempt to prevent anti-plastic bag policy implementation. The result of the study of Jennifer Clapp & Linda Swanston has been legislative action primarily at the subnational level, in a scattered fashion. The ability of material interests to prevent national-level policy in some key states can be considered one factor in the absence of any international codification of the anti-plastic bag norm.

Managing marine plastic pollution

According to Roy Scott (2015) By one estimate, the volume of plastic debris going into the world’s oceans could more than double by 2025, assuming current trends in coastal development and plastics use. Some countries have begun identifying ways to improve the management of plastic waste, creating solutions that make sense both for business and for the sea. Over the coming decades, the volume of plastic waste moving from the land into the sea is expected to increase if the many coastal economies and populations around the world continue to expand without taking steps to manage their municipal solid waste. Marine plastic pollution will remain a difficult problem to solve because it represents a “fundamental market failure” on a worldwide scale, says Leonard of Ocean Conservancy. He explains, “The production of plastic is ramp-ing up,14 but society isn’t able to keep up with that waste.” NOAA’s Wallace believes gear mark-ings or a global system for reporting lost gear would be helpful in managing sea-based plastic pollution. “Today, we can’t trace any of that gear back [to its source],” she says. “It would be good to know which countries many of these nets are coming from, so we could find practices that would stop it from happening in the first place.” In 2012 Ocean Conservancy mobilized a new effort called the Trash Free Seas Alli-ance®, which includes chemical and plastics companies, producers of plastic consumer items, economists, environmental scientists, and conservation groups. The alliance is using the cross-sector expertise of its members to develop innovative, sustainable strategies to eliminate ocean waste.21 “We need a better understanding of the economic restraints to solve the plastic debris problem,” Leonard says. “We are looking at business practices that could allow greater recapture, recovery, reuse. Then we can identify and craft a suite of locally relevant solutions that make sense for business and for the ocean.” 

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