Myanmar foreign business groups vow no single-use plastic
A student puts empty plastic bottles into a recycling separation bin at a waste management system learning centre at Praram 9 Kanchanapisek School. Apichart Jinakul. Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.
NAY PYI TAW, Jan 23, 2020, Myanmar Times. More than ten foreign business groups in Myanmar will organise and sponsor events only in hotels and venues that minimise single-use plastics, according to a joint statement. Eleven corporate associations this week released an Event Sustainability Manifesto which seeks to avoid single-use plastics and waste from their events, in a move to support Myanmar’s sustainable development, Myanmar Times reported.
“By working together, we can all make a real impact on reducing the burden of waste in Myanmar and raising public awareness. We therefore will choose venues which are committed to removing single-use plastics including bottles, straws, utensils, cups and wrapping and replacing them with reusable alternatives,” the statement said. Where it cannot be avoided, they will use venues which can maximise recyclable options.
It was signed by AHK Myanmar of Germany, AustCham Myanmar, BritCham Myanmar, CCI France Myanmar, China Enterprise Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar, EuroCham Myanmar, Italy-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce, Myanmar-Irish Society, Myanmar Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce and Industry, New Zealand Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and the Thai Business Association of Myanmar. The initiative was led by EuroCham and supported by the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB).
MCRB director Vicky Bowman warmly welcomes this collection action and emphasises that events organisers need to reconsider how they can minimise the environmental impact.
“For example, ditch pointless plastic plaques and framed certificates in favour of local food, upcycled gifts or clothing. And it’s about time that the country called a halt to balloon launches, a legacy of the military regime, whose remnants choke turtles and seabirds,” she told this newspaper.
The joint manifesto referred to the Guidelines for Sustainable Workshops and Meetings drafted by the MCRB to save energy, reduce plastic and enhance use of locally sourced materials. Hotels should provide drinking water in refillable glass bottles or jugs instead of plastic bottles and avoid serving sweets or snacks which are individually wrapped in plastic.
In Myanmar, 119 tonnes of plastic – of which more than 50 percent are single-use – were dumped into the Ayeyarwady River every day, according to a 2019 study by Thant Myanmar and Fauna & Flora International. This has serious consequences for both Myanmar’s biodiversity and communities.
River beds are becoming impermeable and shallower since river bed plastic reduces the chance of the wash out of sediment. This leads to more flooding and widening of the river, destroying its banks and affecting the livelihood of communities in the area.
Larger plastic items are mistakenly ingested as food by birds or fish or they get entangled in the material, rendering them immobile so that they starve to death. An example of this would be a video that has been making rounds among Myanmar social media users of a sea turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nostril.
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