As Valentine's Day draws near, environmental group EcoWaste Coalition (EWC) dissuaded political aspirants from hanging plastic tarpaulins with love greetings to cut down campaign-generated wastes.
"Happy Valentine tarpaulins, especially during the campaign season, hardly mean anything to the electorate and can be completely avoided," EWC Zero Waste Campaigner Jove Benosa said in a statement on Friday, Feb. 11.
Instead, Benosa encouraged political leaders and aspirants to show their "love" for voters by coming up with a responsive public service platform that promotes the well-being of the people and the environment.
He also said that avoiding the use of tarps will lower campaign expenses, noting that the bulk production price for it costs around five to 10 pesos per square foot (sq. ft.).
"Tarpaulins, which are often made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, contain toxic chemical additives such as cadmium-bearing stabilizers that are used to slow down degradation when PVC materials and other polymers are exposed to sunlight," EWC said.
According to the environmental group, hundreds of tarpaulins used for the 2013 and 2016 elections contain cadmium — a cancer-causing chemical.
Using an X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analyzer, EWC experts detected cadmium up to 1,279 parts per million (ppm) in 200 tarpaulins from the 2013 elections, while 1,704 ppm were found in 300 tarps from the 2016 elections.
"We can live without single-use plastics (SUPs), but we cannot live sans clean oceans where a big chunk of these disposable plastics, along with their chemical additives, gets dumped every minute," the group said.