Should the use of plastic bags in malls and markets be banned ?

Yes I agree with this idea. It's no doubt that this is one of the biggest way to avoid lots of garbage everywhere especially in metro manila. But sometimes, it's a bit annoying when you're on a rush and forgot to bring a bag to put the bought stuffs and then it's raining.. This idea is good, and we should think of the possible things it will cause, and still we should learn to discipline ourselves to have a clean and neat environment.

We in Albay is already adopting this policy since June 1 of the current year. This is a good move of the government to reduce garbage that would end up in drainage systems that would cause flooding in most areas during rainy season. There are some negative comments regarding the adopting of this ordinance, which says that it would cause another problem such as continuous cutting of trees to make paper bags. But there is a solution for that. We should always bring our grocery bags with us whenever we go to the supermarket so that we won't be using too much paper bags also.

Maybe it might help in the lessening of plastic garbage litter we have right now. But that is a big adjustment for us shoppers since plastic bag has been a with us for quite sometime and it is hard for us to just contend with the reusable bags being encourage by many malls. Despite it is still allowed to this day, we started using the reusable bag for our grocery already. I think we are already starting to be conscious about our environmental problem hounding us already.

I think yes. I will defiinitely agree if this will be ban. There are already other cities and towns that implements the ban of using plastics. If they can do it, why not in other areas. Malls should be the first one to have this kind of ordinance and will become models to others. Even they are claiming that they are using biodegradable plastics, still they are plastics and needs long years to fully degrade those. SM Malls used this ordinance every wednesday only but still they customers can ask plastics in exchange of certain amount which I think not yet enough for the campaign because they still have the option to have plastics. Use of papers bags without any option can be a good rule in implementing these. I just hope that it will run the whole week.

It shouldn't be banned! Plastic is not the problem here. The real problem are the very irresponsible Filipinos who throw their trash anywhere they want to.

well i can see the good in banning them to solve this problem but then there will be an even bigger problem and that would be how would people carry all their stuff out? i mean if you go to buy a lot of make-up, groceries, toys, ect. how is it that you can get all that to you car? or if you use a cart how is to get it inside the house without it taking forever because you have no bags?

There are pros and cons to this issue but I think the pros would likely win. If we stopped using plastics then demand for paper bags would rise and this would mean more demand for trees and the cutting of more trees. The good thing is there a lot of alternatives to paper bags such as those made of cloth. On the other hand, the main problem we have with plastics is that it's non biodegradable which means that once created it would thousands of years before we can consider it gone but I heard that there are biodegradable plastics and it's already available in the Philippines. Which means that we don't have to do away with plastics anymore as more as there are stringent laws to ensure that only biodegradable plastics are used in the market.

There is already a ban in place here.It came into effect from 15th September 2012. No one is supposed to carry plastic bags and if they are seen doing that they will be jailed. This time they mean it.

My city (Las Pinas) has already adopted the ban since January 2012, it's not only with plastic bags but it goes with styro-foams too. We all seem to have adopted in a short span of time, difficult at first cause the brown bag would rip off especially when wet but every body now seems to have his or her recyclable eco-bags. Our mayor also gave away free eco-bags for every household, yes free, all you have to do is sign and put your address so they can verify you are from our city. Yes everybody should sacrifice a little if it's for the environment, it's now much cleaner here ( although we already won many awards for cleanliness), and come to think of it there were no plastic bags when I was a kid, only baskets, and yet the country was very rich back then

I half agreed on that. Plastics is better to us in putting up groceries rather than paper bags. Paper bags tear easily when it is accidentally pour liquids. I only suggest to minimize the usage of plastics and do not just throw away plastics after using it.