WEBCAST Problematic Plastics Series: Can Grassroots Action and EPR Law Stem the Tide of Single-Use Plastics in Asia?

Nicole Portley

"The Break Free from Plastic movement has learned from prior movements in the environmental space. It’s decentralized; it’s not a centralized gatekeeper. It’s international. . . It’s elevating leadership around the world; it’s not western-centric. It’s systemic thinking: it’s not just going for environmental goals, you also have social and economic justice written in the goals of the movement."

"The spirit of EPR [enhanced producer responsibility] is in the right place. We do want producers to take more responsibility and to be putting less externality out there - less mess for others to clean up."

"We don’t need to think of bans as not being progressive as EPR. When you have an overflowing bathtub, the solution is turning off the tap!"

Miko Aliño

"The point of introducing sachets in mostly low income countries is to provide access to low-income households who can’t afford bulk containers. While it’s good, convenient, and affordable, someone’s gotta pay [the costs]."

"Some cities [in the Philippines] spend as much as 20 percent of their annual budgets trying to manage waste and a big percentage of that is these small plastic packages."

"Unfortunately, you see a lot of companies trying to lobby, and trying to block these initiatives to make sure that there are alternatives to single-use systems."

Quach Thi Xuan

"In Vietnam we [are seeking] a new model to reduce sachets. We also introduced a mobile refillable station with a motorbike. Nowadays, there are more and more models of refillable and reusable businesses."

"The average Vietnamese citizen uses nearly 500 plastic bags per year. But we need to address not only the demand side, but also the supply side. EPR needs regulation to make business as usual very very expensive, meaning [companies] will need to take action to reduce from the upstream."

Mao Da

"EPR is a national strategy to deal with waste. However, in terms of plastic, I don’t think the EPR is currently the main tool [in China]. EPR is included in China’s new Solid Waste Law, but it places greater emphasis on batteries, cars, e-waste, etc. China had a national directive earlier this year and the emphasis is on banning and phasing out five types of [plastic] products, including plastic microbeads, ultra-thin plastic bags, ultra-thin plastic film for agriculture, and plastic products produced from medical plastic waste."

"No one will disagree that e-commerce is a big engine for consumption nowadays but it is also a big engine for waste.  It is symbolized by the 11/11 global shopping festival, created in 2009, [which] in Chinese is called CRAZY festival. In the 2016 [11/11 shopping festival], the global merchandise volume reached over 100 billion Chinese yuan...last year the number increased to 260 billion yuan. However, for the [e-commerce packaging], the plastic recycling rate is very low in China, close to 10 percent. Almost all of it goes to landfill or incinerators."