The government identified 10 highly urbanized areas that could be part of the 60 million euro grant by the European Union to support the country's transition to a green economy.

A green economy stresses, among others, reducing waste and plastic, as well as to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy deployment to support climate change mitigation.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga pointed out "that under consideration of this grant would be the involvement of the local government."

"We have identified about 10 LGUs that could potentially be part of this program for improving their circular economy locally and of course climate change mitigation because of the control of the methane releases from the management of the solid waste landfills," she said.

"Those LGUs that were considered are the highly urbanized ‘no, of course Baguio City, Pasig, Quezon City is already well on the way, Caloocan po, Davao, Ormoc, the Island Garden City of Samal dito sa Davao din, Metro Iloilo and the islands of Palawan and Siargao," she added.

However, Loyzaga noted that the details of the program still "have to be worked out and defended at the NEDA-ICC.

"We’re in the process of actually putting the necessary documentation together," she said.

Loyzaga said the government is targeting "to have all our submissions ready, hopefully for assessment by the NEDA Board by November of this year."

"In the meantime though, we are embarking on our own efforts to green our economy already given that we have in placed the legislation that we need especially to oblige those large enterprises that actually are the main sources of plastic packaging to begin their collection and to begin their proper disposal of their packaging products," she said. Robina Asido/DMS