According to studies by conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature Philippine (WWF-Philippines), each Filipino consumes a yearly average of 20kgs of plastics, and 15.43kgs of it becomes total plastic waste. The country is also suffering from a very low plastic recycling rate of 9% and the studies show that the Philippines leaks about 35% of plastic waste into the environment.
WWF-Philippines has long been an advocate of the Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) Law. The EPR scheme is a critical policy tool that holds producers accountable for the full life cycle of their products and packaging. EPR is an environmental policy approach that emerged in the 1990s and is now increasingly recognized globally as a useful tool for accelerating the transition to sustainable waste management and a circular economy. This scheme encourages waste reduction through the elimination of unnecessary packaging of products, the development of more environmentally friendly packaging design, and the recovery of plastic packaging from the trash in order to reuse or recycle them back into the production process.
