Baguio City – “IT’S THE NEXT BEST THING TO NATIVE ‘BAYONG.’

In the City of Pines, blue plastic bags are now being used in SM-owned stores. But these are not ordinary plastic bags; they are biodegradable and they are Filipino-made.

Though exactly like original plastic bags in appearance and feel, these bags are completely environmentally-friendly, containing no lead or metal.

“It looks like plastic but it is not plastic. It has zero lead content and zero metal content,�? Mayor Reinado Bautista, Jr. said.

“It’s very safe and it’s biodegradable, and will fully disintegrate in six months or less. It turns into powder and blends with the soil after a few months.�?

He said that the technology is very cheap since it is a Filipino technology.

The city council in 2007 passed an ordinance that prohibits business establishments from using plastic bags.

Bautista returned the document unsigned because he wants a gradual enforcement of the proposed restrictions until its full implementation in 2012.

The council has not yet amended the measure.

Bautista says the new retail bags introduced SM’s environmental programs for its 50th anniversary.

With SM now in the lead, other businesses will follow suit, he says, adding that SM alone accounts for some 60 percent of waste plastic bags in the city.

This, according to Bautista, is the first step in phasing out non-biodegradable packaging materials, particularly plastic bags, by 2012.

The city is the first in the country to promote the use of biodegradable plastics.

The technology comes in the wake of garbage disposal problems plaguing the city as the Irisan dumpsite here nears its maximum carrying capacity within the next six months and becomes more hazardous with high concentrations of methane gas in the area.

The city dumps around 300 tons of waste in its open dumpsite daily, 65 percent of which are biodegradable wastes.

While 70 percent of the Irisan dumpsite is already closed, covered with gravel and ready for rehabilitation, 30 percent of the area is serving as a temporary dumping site while the city looks for a suitable area for a sanitary landfill.

But with additional problems coming from communities that may be affected if the city relocates its dumpsite in their areas, it may be more than six months before the city finds a solution.

An option, according to Bautista, is to request Benguet Gov. Nestor Fongwan for a temporary arrangement for the city to dump its garbage in La Trinidad’s landfill for a month.

Another is for the city to build retaining walls along cliffs and use these as temporary dumping grounds.

“The minimum requirement for a landfill for Baguio is 22 hectares so households will be very far from this sanitary landfill,�? Bautista says.

Bautista, who recently arrived from a visit to the Navotas sanitary landfill, cited Navotas, where fish ponds surround the dumping grounds.

“But there is no fish kill in Navotas,�? he says.