(By Rae Dawn Balagot Maestrado)
CAN YOU still recite your 3Rs? For most Filipino Gen Zs, the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) were first taught in school. As children, it was simply a matter of distinction between trash bins. But as this generation grew up, the understanding of the impact of waste on the environment deepened.
Inevitably, most Gen Zs are environmentally conscious, fueled by notable events like the viral 2015 video of a rescued turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nose, which sparked an environmental movement. The world felt like it was changing. The question is: Has it?
Local shops offered reusable bags, restaurants started using cardboard straws, and eco-friendly businesses offered alternatives to plastic. If you were deep into the rabbit hole, you probably attempted the zero-waste movement too, yet sadly failed, like most environmental-saving attempts anyway.
So, what went wrong?
Did the constant reminder that trash is harmful, yet seeing no real action, breed an apathetic group of people? We have been practicing the 3Rs for a long time now in the Philippines. Shouldn’t that have been enough to keep our waste problem in check?
It may be a good system, but it is unfortunately not the real solution. Reducing consumption in this age of rampant consumerism, reusing our trash when most cannot be bothered to, and recycling trash only for everything to end up in the same landfill anyway, make us question: What exactly is the point?
The systems we have in place neither match our modern behaviors nor can they keep up with our future trash. Everything we mindlessly own and use now will become trash eventually. Our gadgets, cheap polyester clothing, and engineered particleboard furniture will all age and become unusable. Let’s not burden the next generations with our belongings. The stuff that will outlive us is sadly going to a landfill or wasting away. However, are we solely to blame? Of course not.
For a while now, all responsibility has been assigned to us as a moral duty. Jonathan Baker, in his article “How the plastics industry shifted responsibility for recycling onto you, the consumer,” wrote that recycling is a myth born in 1950s North America. When disposable bottles were briefly banned in Vermont due to complaints about broken glass killing livestock, beverage companies founded “Keep America Beautiful” and promoted “litterbug” ads. They made consumers take responsibility by branding it as a moral duty. Somehow, it worked, and the truly responsible – packaging designers, supply chains, and corporate incentives – disappeared from the equation.
In the Philippines, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (RA 9003) promotes a similar approach by assigning waste responsibility to the government, businesses, and citizens under local government units (LGUs). RA 9003 provides that LGUs must achieve a minimum target of diverting 25 percent of solid waste through the 3Rs paradigm. While there was some success at local levels, end-users who collect recyclables have varied demands depending on the locality. Not all recyclable materials are collected and reused, which is why most trash ends up in the same landfill.
Recycling is not meeting its goals. According to data by Geyer, Jambeck, & Law (2017) in “Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made,” only 9% of trash is recycled globally; 49% is in landfills, 19% is incinerated, and 22% is mismanaged.
So, should we abandon recycling?
Of course not. It is the systems we abide by that need reform. Recycling is only a myth because it’s one-sided. Manufacturing and packaging companies are partially responsible for the trash their products inevitably become.
We need a system where we can directly return used products to whoever produced them, since they have the means to recycle the materials they used. We already have that system for glass bottles, so why not for plastic? Embracing this inconvenience now is far better than living long enough to experience the cost of today’s environmental apathy.
As a generation, Gen Z has spent our entire lives carrying the weight of a climate crisis we didn’t create. We have dutifully sorted our trash, carried our canvas totes, and choked down paper straws, only to watch corporations continuously flood the planet with plastic. The guilt-tripping narrative that places the future of the earth entirely on our individual consumer choices ends here. It is time to look past the trash bins and direct our focus toward the boardrooms.
We must collectively demand Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) systems that force manufacturers to take back their own waste. We are done absorbing the moral penalties for a broken system; let’s hold the true creators of plastic pollution accountable before there is nothing left to inherit.
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The author owns and manages Belinda Communications Consulting. You can reach us via email at belindabelsales@gmail.com. Engage with us on X @ShilohRuthie./PN
