Circular economy: ‘Goods that keep giving’

In my previous column, I briefly discussed the establishment of a circular economy, an economic model for creating value by extending product lifespans through improved design and servicing, and shifting manufacturers’ focus from the end of the supply chain to the beginning. (“When a law becomes the problem,” 7/2/26).

This is in accordance with Republic Act No. 11898, or the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Act of 2022, which amended RA 9003, otherwise known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.

The EPR is a novel idea that assigns legal responsibility to businesses that use plastic in their manufacturing, production, and distribution processes, as the law expressly requires large enterprises to recover, recycle, and reuse the plastic waste they generate.

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Essentially, a circular economy lessens waste by considering the fate of plastics used as raw materials or packaging from the very start of production. Reusing products and plastic materials is sine qua non, or fundamentally crucial, for establishing a circular economy.

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But the world’s economy, including the Philippines’, still follows a linear model—the “take-make-dispose” model that generates tons of waste. These plastics end up in our waterways, oceans, and ever-expanding landfills due to high leakage rates and waste mismanagement (see my previous column, “PH’s plastic problem: Only 9 percent recycled,” 6/25/26).

In contrast, a circular economy is the “make-use-recycle” model that designs products so their raw materials and/or packaging can be reused to produce new products (e.g., from tires to footwear; turning used plastics into raw materials for cement or composite bricks; producing durable goods like appliances that are meant to be serviced (and even upgraded) by manufacturers).

Product life cycle. Thus, after a long era governed by RA 9003, Congress passed the EPR Act, which is an “environmental policy approach and practice that requires producers to be environmentally responsible throughout the life cycle of a product, especially its post-consumer or end-of-life stage.”

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The EPR that product producers are mandated to do “intends to efficiently utilize resources by its continual use, and aims to retain the highest utility and value of products, components, and materials at all times, through sharing, leasing, reuse, repair, refurbishment, and recycling in an almost closed loop,” Section 3 of the law says.

The law institutionalizes “the extended producer responsibility mechanism as a practical approach to efficient waste management, focusing on waste reduction, recovery, and recycling.” It also mandates the “development of environment-friendly products that advocate the internationally accepted principles on sustainable consumption and production, circular economy, and producers’ full responsibility throughout the life cycle of their product.”

Now, that is a mandate supposedly broad enough to flesh out the state’s declared policy of adopting a “systematic, comprehensive, and ecological solid waste management program.”

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It’s important to note that the EPR Act focuses solely on implementing EPR for plastic packaging waste, targeting the “polymer material designed to protect a product from environmental factors, or carry goods for transportation, distribution, and sale…” such as sachets, labels, laminates; rigid plastic packaging products; plastic bags; and polystyrene.

High recyclability, retrievability. The EPR Act defines plastic as a synthetic material composed of various organic polymers, including polyethylene terephthalate, high-density polyethylene, low-density polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and nylon, that can be processed into solid objects of various shapes.

It is these types of plastic that EPR targets for high product recyclability “due to its design, composition, content, and density, among other things”; high retrievability as “a significant volume of its waste can be recovered, properly recycled, processed or disposed of, on account of its high value for recovery, recycling, or reprocessing”; and plastic neutrality “where, for every amount of plastic product footprint created, an equivalent amount thereof is recovered or removed from the environment by the product producers through an efficient waste management system.”

Plastic neutrality is another idea that has emerged to address global plastic pollution by reducing a product’s footprint—a measure of the environmental damage it can cause. But environmental advocates argue that, instead of reducing plastic waste, such as throwaway packaging, corporations embracing plastic neutrality invest in harmful practices, including the burning of plastic.

It’s clear that the EPR Act requires urgent amendment, with reducing manufacturers’ and consumers’ carbon footprints and banning single-use plastic packaging front and center in this congressional review. Congress should seize this moment because the same law, thankfully, mandates a review within five years, scheduled for next year.

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