Villar urges everyone to save ‘suffering’ planet

MANILA, Philippines — With the earth in the middle of a climate emergency, Sen. Cynthia Villar urged stakeholders – the government, manufacturers and citizens – to collaborate and save the “suffering” planet.

“We occupy the same ‘suffering’ planet due to a climate emergency; we should learn to live in partnership to solve our biggest problems together. The globe is in the middle of a climate emergency,” Villar said in her speech during the Coca-Cola “World Without Waste” event in Taguig with the theme, “The Role of Partnerships in Driving a Circular Economy.”

“Because of this, every individual is bound not only to reduce his or her own footprint but also find strategic interventions to drastically redeem what would have been valuable materials from the waste stream,” said Villar.

Villar also commended the Coca-Cola company for not only looking at collection compliance, but also developing ways to incorporate recycled materials in their packaging.

“Cradle-to-grave management of products is no longer sufficient. Responsibility must begin at product conceptualization before it even sees production,” said Villar, chair of the Senate committee on environment and natural resources.

She was referring to the management model where the generating company is responsible for all legal and financial liabilities if an error occurs at any stage of the waste disposal process.

While thriving corporations have already adopted the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework as their ethical responsibility, the senator emphasized it is about time to turn this ethical responsibility into a legal one.

“The law introduces a better policy than simply expecting all our citizens to segregate and manage their wastes and let the local governments in our scattered settlements and islands deal with the massive problems brought about by the lack of legal responsibility among the top producers of plastic wastes,” said Villar.

She said EPR requires manufacturers to reach collection targets. The EPR Law places responsibility for products squarely on the shoulders of the manufacturer from cradle to grave.

“Hopefully, what is collected will no longer find its way back to the environment as unmanaged waste,” the senator added.

She noted that large enterprises should be able to recover and recycle a minimum of 20 percent of all packaging waste distributed for the year before the end of 2023, adding that the target rises to 40 percent in the second year, 50 percent in the third year and so on until 80 percent by 2028.

“It is actually my hope that your considerable resources will allow your industries to fast-track research and development, reach and breach these targets and go beyond mere compliance,” she added. “When these very realistic targets are met or exceeded, EPR expenses will be deducted from taxable annual income.”