cagayan de Oro City will start to impose a ban on plastic bags starting Jan. 1, next year as a way of implementing City Ordinance 13378-2018 that the city council has approved this year.
City Local Environment and Natural Resource Office (Clenro) chief Engr. Armen Cuenca said this means that malls, superstores, sari-sari stores, and public markets will be banned to use plastic bags for products bought in their stores. However, plastic roll bags used for meat, fish, and other processed foods are exempted from the ban.
Instead, Cuenca said, consumers are enjoined to use reusable bags when buying from the stores.
Cuenca added that store violators will be penalized with a fine.
Elvisa Mabelin, division chief of Clenro’s solid waste management division, said the store will be fined P3,000 for every plastic bag it gives to its customers.
According to a study by Clenro, the city accumulates some 650 tons of garbage per day and that 62 percent of this is recyclable or reusable like plastic bags and others.
Currently, Clenro has been doing the rounds to inform store owners of the city-wide plastic regulation.
Mabelin said the measure also aims to regulate the volume of garbage the city has been dumping to its sanitary landfill. (cli)
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