Bagmaking: Waste utilization and evaluation

Introduction

Since the commercial development in 1930 and1940, the utilization of plastics and plasticpackaging have dominated the consumermarketplace until the 21st century (Kosior andCrescenzi, 2020). Plastics which consist ofsynthetic polymers have long been mass-producedand have, in fact, been a very useful man-madematerial. Although there are a large variety ofpolymers, eight of these contribute the 95%,exceeding nine billion metric tons by the end of2017. From this, seven billion tons of plastic wasteswere generated, and only about 10%, 14%, and 76%were recycled, incinerated, and transported tolandfills, dumps, or surroundings, respectively. Ifthe annual primary plastic production in the worldcontinues, it is estimated to reach 1.1 billion tons in2050 (Geyer, 2020).

Plastic offers a wide range of uses due to itsremarkable properties with ease of processing whichsatisfies the modern lifestyles of people. In fact, it isconsidered to be a sustainable alternative over othermaterials such as glass, metals and paper. Due tothese, plastics play a vital role in promotingsustainability as part of a circular economy (CE)which is basically a concept that promotes asustainable way of living, using resources moreefficiently and retaining in the economy for as long aspossible. 

The cost efficiency and convenience offered by plasticsachets as well as the inefficient waste disposal resultin several negative environment impacts (WWFPhilippines, 2018). In Europe, a laminated flexiblepackaging film, which were actually more difficult oreven impossible to recycle, composed approximately3-4% of the packaging products. Similarly, around65% of the laminated flexibles are disposed with themixed municipal solid waste and 35% are collected inseparate collection schemes for lightweight packagingwastes in the Netherlands. Further, the Philippines isexpected to have an increasing consumption of plasticwastes, specifically laminated sachets which arecomposed of polyethylene (PE) and polyethyleneterephthalate (PET) used in various food and nonfood products.

Plastics pose one of the biggest challenges toachieving a circular economy because a huge amountof its waste basically escapes into the environmentdue to mismanagement (Hahladakis et al., 2020).According to Meier et al. (2021), the country is foundto be one of the largest contributor of marine plasticpollution from rivers with 4,820 rivers emitting356,371 metric tons of plastic per year with the PasigRiver as the single greatest polluting river in theworld (Meijer et al., 2021; Parkinson, 2021). Theincreasing demand of laminated sachets has led thecountry to become one of the top ocean polluters inthe world (Deang et al., 2020). Most stakeholdersinvolved in plastic packaging are dedicated to creatinga more sustainable, circular plastics industry,however, several challenges with regards tosustainable recycling of flexible laminates exist(Velzen et al., 2020). 

In response to the Sustainable Development Goal(SDG) 12, known as the "responsible consumptionand production" (United Nations, n.d.), this studyaims to contribute to sustainable development goalsby upcycling waste laminated sachets and produce amore useful product. Specifically, this study aims toconduct an awareness survey for the solid wastemanagement and plastic waste utilization of anorganization, provide an intervention by conductinga training-workshop on producing an innovativeproduct, evaluate the output produced, and lastly,determine the participants' perception on thetraining.