Abstract

The Dumagute Public Market nearly has everything a consumer needs and in line with

this are the plastics bags that are being use for packing and serving the goods. The objective of

this study was to examine the relationship of environmental and economic effects of banning

single use plastic to small scale businesses in the Dumaguete Public Market. The data were

collected using survey questionnaires that has been distributed to business owners in the

Dumaguete Public Market. A total of 80 respondents answered the survey questionnaires. Most

of the respondents are meat shop owners and most of them offer sando bags to their customers

which are single use plastic. Majority of the business owners supports the banning of single used

plastics because they know the environmental effects of it however, it can also affect the

economic status of their business. Alternatives solutions or substitute of single used plastics that

business owner suggest is let costumers bring their own reusable bags or containers. Spearman

rho was used to measure how extreme the observation and relationship between the

environmental and economic effects of banning single use plastics to small scale businesses. It

was found out that there is no significant relationship found between environmental and

economic effects of banning single use plastics to small scale businesses as the p value of 0.2541

is higher than the the significance level of 0.05. By normal standards, the association between the

two variables would not be considered statistically significant.

Presentation, Analysis, And Interpretation Of Data

Painitan
15%
Meat Shop
25%

Kalenderya
16%

Fish Stall
15%
Fruit Stall
16%

Vegetable Stall
13%
Figure 3.

Question 1.What business do you have in the Public Market?

Dumaguete City Public Market is filled with numerous businesses, usually small scale

businesses including fish market, food eateries, meat shops, and fruit and vegetables stalls.

The researchers have classified which among these businesses make up the most number of

businesses. The painitan, karenderya or food eateries, meat shops, fish, vegetable and fruit

stalls was found to be the most number of businesses.

The chart above shows what type of businesses found in the Dumaguete City Public

Market. As seen from this graph 25% respondents are meat shop business owners, followed

by 16% from karenderya and fruit stall owners, and only 1% gap, that also have the same

percentage of 15% are fish stall and painitan business owners. This table reveals that most of

the business owners that were surveyed are meat shop owners.
 No
41%

Yes
59%

Figure 4.Question .Does your business use single-use plastics?

The pie chart above shows that from small scale business owners in the Dumaguete

Public Market,59% respondents answered yes they use single-use plastics in their business while

the remaining 41% do not use single use plastics. On 2018, Dumaguete City Mayor Felipe

Antonio Remollo implemented Ordinance No. 231 series of 2011 which bans the use of plastic

bags to best manage the city solid wastes. However, the implementation of the ordinance was

discontinued several years ago after the enforcers were pulled out. As per City Government's

advise, market goers can use recyclable plastic bags, baloyot/bayong, net bags, catcha bags or

sako bags for their goods (Tilos, 2018).

 Chart Title

Plastic Straws

Disposable utensils

Disposable Cups

Roll Bags

Sando Bag

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Figure 5.Question 3.What single-use plastics do you offer your customers?

This table above shows that majority of small scale business owners in Dumaguete City

Public Market offersando bags to costumers to put wet or dry goods inside, with a

percentage of 65%. Another 23% of the respondents answered that they use roll bags with a

total frequency of 11, and the rest that has the lowest frequency uses disposable cups with

4%, followed by disposable utensils with a frequency of 1 and percentage of 2%, and lastly,

6% uses plastic straws with a frequency of 3. It totally shows that sando bags are the most

used single use plastics by business owners.

On December 2019, single use plastic pollution was addressed by an official of the

Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to asked the Congress to

consider taxing plastic bags per piece. Data from DENR showed that in the first quarter of

2019, Metro Manila has already produced 34,574.77 cubic meters of garbage. This is

59.45% of the total target 58,112.31 cubic meters for 2019. By the second quarter, estimated

waste generation reached 55.45% of total, which means the target waste generation baseline

for 2019 has already been surpassed.  DENR’s efforts to address single-use plastic is to urge
 other government agencies and local government units to refrain from using single-use

plastics, such as stirrer, cup, spoon and fork, and plastic “labo”or bags (The Philippine Star,

2019).

Never

Seldom

Sometimes

Always

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Figure 6.Question 4.How often do you use these single-use plastics?

From this table business owners rate themselves how often they use single use plastics.

The figure shows that always and sometimes has the same highest frequency with 24 (30%). In

addition to this number, another has the same total of frequency with 16 (20%) said business

owners both uses single use plastics seldom and sometimes. This table reveals that nearly

majority of the business owners in the public market are still confident offering customers single

use plastics because it is convenient at all.

 No
24%

Yes
76%

Figure 7.Question 5.Are you aware of the environmental effects brought by single-used

plastics?

This chart above shows that out of total sample size, 61 respondents are aware of the

environmental effects brought by single-used plastics. This number amounts to 76% of

respondents. The rest indicated that they are not aware at all of the environmental effects

brought by single-used plastics (24%). With the help of media like television, radio and

social media, the public have become aware of the environmental effects brought by single

use plastics. It delivers and provides information to the public about the the negative effects

to the environment like water pollution, deaths of marine animals, land and air pollution.
 No
38%

Yes
63%

Figure 8.Question 6.As a business owner, will you support the banning of single-use plastics?

The chart above shows that business owners will support the banning of single-use

plastics, 62% of the respondents answered yes while 38% answered they do not support the

ban. This means regardless the result of banning single use plastics, majority of the business

owners will support if a total ban of single use plastics will be strictly implemented.

No
34%

Yes
66%

Figure 9.Question 7.Will it affect the economic status of your business?

 Fugure 9 shows that majority of the business owners said that banning of single-use

plastics will affect their economic status in their business, with a frequency of 51

respondents (66%). And the rest (34%) answered it will not affect their business at all.

In connection with on the results in Figure 6, majority of the business owners supports the

banning of single use plastic regardless if it will affect their economic status. Chances

atheirincome may go down, up, or stay the same.

1
20%

3
51%

2
29%

Figure 10.Question 8.Choose the best alternative solution or substitute of single-use

plastics?
 Figure 10 shows what are the best alternative solution or substitute of single-use plastics.

Majority of the respondents answered that customers must bring their own reusable bags or

containers with percentage (51%). On the other hand business owners answered that customers

must use paper bags instead of sando or roll bags with a percentage (20%). Lastly (29%) of the

business owners answered that they should provide reusable bags or containers to customers.

This means that business owners prefer customers to bring their own reusable bags, in this way

they will be able to minimize the use of single used plastics.

Table 1. Test of relationship

Variables rs value p value Df Remarks

Environmental -0.129 0.2541 78 Not Significant

and Economic

Table 1 uses the Spearman rho to measure how extreme the observation and relationship

between the environmental and economic effects of banning single use plastics to small scale

businesses as seen under the rs value. The significance level used to reject or accept the null

hypothesis is 0.05.

As presented in Table 1, rs value is -0.129 and a p value of 0.2541. 02541 is higher than

significance level 0.05, therefore there is no significant relationship found between

environmental and economic effects of banning single use plastics to small scale businesses as rs

value of -0.129 and a p value of 0.2541. By normal standards, the association between the two

variables would not be considered statistically significant.

Certain policies can have unintended negative consequences. These include efforts to ban

or tax products such as plastic bags. While these initiatives likely arise from a sincere effort to
prevent litter and help the environment, government officials often overlook the negative

economic impact, and overstate the environmental impact, of these policies.  A study by the

National Center for Policy Analysis shows that single use plastic bag bans have a negative effect

on retail sales in areas where bans are in place as they encourage shoppers to take their business

to areas neighboring the ban regions.

There are many different viewpoints on whether plastic bags are bad for the economy and

the environment. According to State of Chamber of Oklahoma, business sales and profits are

negatively affected by plastic bag bans. Plastic bag bans not only provide an unfair advantage to

retailers in a geographic area without a plastic bag ban, they also have additional unintended

consequences. The theft of store shopping carts and shopping baskets is higher in areas with

plastic bag bans. Additionally, customers use more plastic produce bags,which undercuts the

effect of the ban. Overall, plastic bag bans increase prices for consumers, decrease profit for

producers, and decrease economic activity in the area affected by the plastic bag ban (National

Center for Policy Analysi, n.d.)

Summary

This study is conducted to find out if there is a significant relationship between the

environmental and ecocnomic effects of banning single used plastics to small scale businesses in

Dumaguete City Public Market. The study is made because of its present escalating problem in

the environment brought by single used plastics. It also tackles if it affects their economic status

in their business if banning of single used plastics. In addition, business owners suggest what

would be the best alternative solution or substitute of single used plastics. All of the data has

been interpreted and analyzed in order to determine if there would be a relationship between the

environmental and economic effects of banning single used plastics.

Specifically, the study aims to answer the following research questions:

1. Do small scale business owners aware of the negative environmental effects brought by single

use plastics?

2. What are the economic effects of banning single use plastics to small scale business owners in

Dumaguete City Public Market?

3. What are the alternative solutions or substitutes of single use plastics for small scale business

owners in the Dumaguete City Public Market?

The data were collected using survey questionnaires that has been distributed to business

owners in the Dumaguete Public Market. At the beginning of the data gathering most of the

respondents are meat shop owners and most of them offer sando bags to their customers which is

an example of a single used plastic. The researchers discovered that not all business owners used

single used plastics especially to business owners that sell dry goods like in painitan,
karenderya, fruit and vegetable stalls. According to the data gathered, majority of the business

owners supports the banning of single used plastics it is because they know the environmental

effects of it; however it can also affect the economic status of their business. Business owners

have wide range of selection to what kind of packaging they will offer to the consumers and one

of the common selections and at the same time a bad approach to the environment are single

used plastics. This is because of the comfort, convenience and easy to use for the consumers,

even though they are aware of the effects on it. Yet some business owners still offers alternative

substitute to single use plastics, and what business owners strongly agreed is to provide reusable

bags or containers to customers.

Conclusion

The study conducted has yielded conclusion based on the calculations. The researchers

use Spearman rho to measure if there is a relationship between the environmental and economic

effects of banning single use plastics to small scale businesses. The significance level used to

reject or accept the null hypothesis is 0.05.

Based on the calculations with rs value of -0.129 and a p value of 0.2541, the p value

0.2541 is higher than significance level 0.05. Therefore, there is no significant relationship found

between environmental and economic effects of banning single use plastics to small scale

businesses. By normal standards, the association between the two variables would not be

considered statistically significant.