Ban plastic tarpaulins
A PROPOSED legislation is now pending consideration in the 24-member Senate seeks to prohibit the use of plastic tarpaulins during the election campaign period.
In impoverished Philippines, a Southeast Asian nation of election-crazy people, national and local polls are held every three years as mandated by the Constitution.
This is in addition to the non-partisan Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (BSK) election, which is supposed to be held next October after several postponements.
Thus, Senator Raffy Tulfo’s filing of Senate Bill (SB) No. 1762 is a welcome development in the national government’s uphill battle against plastic pollution.
Tulfo, a former newspaperman, said the proposed legislation actually seeks to amend Republic Act (RA) No. 9006, otherwise known as the “Fair Election Act.”
During the 2022 presidential elections, records show that collected plastic campaign materials, including tarpaulins and posters, weighed a total of 254 tons.
A well-meaning environmental group – the Eco-Waste Coalition (EWC) – said heavy-duty tarpaulins may take a thousand years for them to decompose.
And like other plastic garbage, poll campaign tarpaulins and posters end up in landfills and bodies of water across the country, causing pollution and catastrophic flooding .
Not only that. Plastic poll campaign tarpaulins and posters contain icadmium.
According to World Health Organization expets, cadmium exerts toxic effects on the renal, skeletal and respiratory systems and classified as a human carcinogen.
Banning the use of plastic tartapaulins and posters as poll campaign materials is certainly long overdue.
