Plastic and styrofoam-free Baguio City task force meet on deputization training, IEC and monitoring schedules

Acting on a legislative monitoring and evaluation status report of Ordinance 35, 2017; the reconstituted Plastic and Styrofoam Free Baguio City Task Force spearheaded by the City Environment and Parks Management Office (CEPMO) scheduled a deputization training for enforcers; Information and Education Campaign (IEC) for businesspeople at the market, including the night market; and inspection and monitoring schedules of business establishments, this month and in November.

The task force met Monday afternoon at city hall to thresh out details of the activities as to Ordinance 35, 2017 also known as Regulating the sale, distribution, and use of plastic carry/shopping bags and Styrofoam in the city of Baguio and providing penalties thereof.

According to Engr. Wilbur Suanding who presided over the meeting for CEPMO head Atty. Rhenan Diwas, the deputization training shall be conducted by personnel from the Baguio City Police Office, Public Order and Safely Division (POSD), CEPMO and legal office. A headcount of previously deputized personnel will be done to determine the number of the next batch of trainees, he said.

Engr. Suanding clarified that anti-plastic activities shall be done first in the market and in satellite markets, as pandemic protocols are being lifted. Previously, primers and imprinted tarpaulins have been distributed at the city public market; an IEC was conducted at Bakakeng Central and Camp 7 barangay markets with distribution of primers and tarpaulins and confiscation of plastic bags was done.

Several materials, verification letters, toxicology reports as to the dangers of plastics were also received and used as reference by the CEPMO office, Suanding said, including a  resolution from the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWM) directing the Department of Environment Natural Resources to prepare and implement the banning of the use of unnecessary single-use plastics by National Government Agencies (NGAs), Local Government Units, Offices and all other Government Controlled Offices, issued in 2020.

The resolution cites plastic cups, plastic drinking straws, plastic coffee stirrers, plastic spoons, plastic forks, plastic knives and plastic labo and thin filmed sando bags as unnecessary single-use plastics. 

At the Baguio City Public Market, as with the satellite markets in the barangays, “Sando bag” use may be substituted by reusable bags, or those manufactured with recyclable materials.

No businesses should provide to any customer plastic bags or foam containers for food or drink, for dine in or take out, the ordinance states. Businesses shall also provide customers, free or at cost, reusable or biodegradable bags. Customers can bring to the store reusable bags, except plastic bags prohibited in this ordinance. 

Penalties for violations include a reprimand or immediate closure for establishments without business permits for the first offense; a fine of P1,000 for the second offense, a fine of P3,000 and eight hours community service for the third offense. For the fourth offense, a fine of P5,000 and suspension of business permit for six months is meted out, and for the habitual offender, non-renewal of business permit/closure of business.

The erring operator is given fifteen days from the receipt of notice of violation to comply, and the next offense shall apply should the operator fail to comply after the prescribed period.

Other suggestions and recommendations from the barangays, businessmen, members of the academe, were considered in the monitoring report.

The ordinance is also the subject of an amendment, on first reading at the city council. – JGF