CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Quintana, Carissa Pisano |
|---|---|
| Title | Evaluation of the Single-Use Plastic Ban in Reducing Municipal Plastic Waste in El Nido, Palawan, Philippines |
| Summary | The inescapable presence of plastics in our modern world has been causing alarm over their detrimental impact to the environment and public health. In El Nido, Palawan, a protected group of islands in the Philippines, a ban on single-use plastics is currently enforced although its effectivity remains to be seen. Evaluating its effectivity is critical to maintaining the sensitive environment. This paper evaluates the ongoing ban in El Nido through an investigation of the people’s compliance as well as a waste characterization survey. Insights from interviews determine that compliance is largely lacking, except in particular barangays where enforcement and continued monitoring as well as community acceptance is strong. The waste characterization survey shows that the ban helps eliminate plastic straws and bags as waste as although bottled water is still highly used, due mainly because of unsafe groundwater issues in El Nido. A map of compliance shows that serious attention needs to be given to the lack of compliance in barangays Bebeladan, Bagong Bayan, Manlag, and Teneguiban. Overall, the ban should be part of a multi-prong approach to reducing plastic waste. Stakeholders need to collaborate on solutions that considers the economic realities of places such as El Nido. These solutions would, ideally, feature not only a ban but also capture refill and dispense distribution models for fast moving consumer goods. Banning single-use plastics have come to represent the ideals of sustainable development but efforts should not stop there, what is needed to enact significant changes are systemic and holistic solutions. |
| Supervisor | Illes, Zoltan |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/quintana_carissa.pdf |
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