MANILA, Philippines – The degradation of the environment is not a new visibility in our midst but that it is attracting more serious attention now may be an opportune time to confront it – and more earnestly.

The fact is, the United Nations has recently cautioned against environmental deterioration as contributing to health hazard worldwide.

It cautioned against the aggravation of the environmental quality and the wholesale destruction of the ecosystem, including the demise of wildlife.

It is, in fact, any change “or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable.”

Amid all this, it is a nice feeling to hear that the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority is pushing for its campaign to clean up the metropolis and its environs of all kinds of dirt and garbage, particularly plastic wastes.

Incidentally, according to reports, the world’s annual consumption of plastic materials has reached, from 5 million tons in the 1050s to about 100 million tons at present.

It said plastic as material of choice is nearly half of all packaged goods today.

Maybe it is in response to this spectacle that the EcoWaste Coalition’s Task Force Plastic came out the other day to voice their support to the MMDA’s current drive against the use and proliferation of plastic bags.

“We commend MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino’s eagerness to ban plastic bags and containers,” Troy Lacsamana of EcoWaste declared, adding that the MMDA move would significantly address the “garbage and climate woes.”

The MMDA campaign against the use of plastic bags was started by the Muntinlupa City government and was later adopted and enforced in Metro Manila.

Tolentino, obviously impressed by the Muntinlupa initiative, is “strongly encouraging” all local governments to adopt similar projects to combat the dangerous effects of environmental degradation which, he said, could lead to massive flooding and the injurious climate change.

Lacsamana called the local governments’ action as a burden-solving initiative as it frees them from “spending millions of pesos in de-clogging waterways and managing residual plastic discards.”

The EcoWaste Coalition, in a statement, said banning the plastic products has major implications, considering the “reduction of the use of fossil fuels and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”

There are more than 8,000 metric tons of plastic garbage collected daily in Metro Manila, according to the MMDA. What alarms the agency are the plastic products clogging the already inadequate drainage system that could result in the massive flooding in the event of continuous and prolonged heavy rains lashing Metro Manila.

(zhern_218@yahoo.com)