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[av_heading heading=’FAITH, HOPE & CHARITY | Becoming serious with the environment’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY IKE SEÑERES
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Tuesday, May 16, 2017
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THE PHILIPPINES has the distinction of being one of the top countries that have the most volume of plastic waste in its oceans, and that is not something to brag about.
We also have the distinction of having one of the most congested traffic flows in the world, and that is also not something to brag about.
Seemingly unrelated these to distinctions may be, they have something to do with each other, because the common denominator between the two is its impact to our environment. While many of us would complain how slow the traffic is and how much it affects our productivity, the bigger problem really is the amount of air pollution that happens as millions of idle cars are contributing carbon emissions to the air, more than what is necessary.
While visiting a government office, I noticed that there is zero-recycling recycling, instead of zero-waste. And that is only as far as solid wastes are concerned, because I also noticed that the lights in the offices are still on long after office hours are closed, not to mention that the air conditioners are still humming.
Well, it is one thing to worry about the power costs that would surely hit the ceiling, but what we should really worry about is not only the carbon emissions that the air conditioners would spit out, but also the amount of fossil fuels that would be burned just to produce electricity. Add to that the costs of money to pay for these imports, and the impact it does to the strength of the peso.
Pardon me for stating the obvious, but as far as I can remember, the government offices are supposed to set the examples for the twin goals of waste recycling and energy conservation.
Of course, the private sector is rather laggard as far as these two goals are concerned, but I am sure that if and when the government agencies will start the ball rolling. I do not have the statistics with me, but I do know that there are millions of government employees in thousands of government offices who could really make a difference if they start recycling solid wastes and conserving energy in their own offices.
Imagine also what would happen if these employees would also start recycling and conserving in their own homes. Assuming that there are about two million government employees; that would already represent ten million people based on a family index of five.
Just recently I spent about two hours doing nothing in a popular fast food outlet, while waiting for a meeting to start. To spend my time, I observed what the costumers were doing with their food wastes and used dishes, and what the crew were doing about these two.
There was really nothing new about what I saw, because the customers were just leaving their wastes and their dishes on the tables, obviously for the crew to clean up after them. Very few of the customers bothered to throw their own wastes into the trash bins and even if they did, they did not segregate these wastes before throwing these into the bins. It seems that the crew members did not do any better, because they were also not segregating.
I may not be that good in math, but I figured that if only the millions of customers in the thousands of fast food outlets would segregate, that would already make a big contribution towards reducing the solid wastes that would just add more volume to the dumpsites or landfills, as the case may be.
I also noticed that some fast food outlets and even some restaurants would automatically give a glass of water to their customers even if they would not ask for it, thus wasting a lot of water because some customers would not even drink the water that was given to them. Again, imagine how much water could be saved if only the thousands of eating places would conserve water seriously.
As far as I know, we already have enough environmental laws, as a matter of fact, we may already have too much of it. What we need therefore are not more laws, but more enforcement of our laws, or I should say more serious enforcement. And we should do this for all aspects of the environment, meaning to say the mountains, the lowlands, the waters and the air.
Well, I was hoping that we could have done this under the leadership of Ms. Gina Lopez, but that is water under the bridge now. Hopefully, she would continue her leadership even if she is back to the private sector, because she has already earned the moral ascendancy to do so.
Meanwhile, the new Environment secretary Roy Cimatu was a soldier and a diplomat and so we could also hope that he would wage war against those who are violating the environment laws, or if not, negotiate with them to achieve whatever is necessary for our country. (iseneres@yahoo.com/PN)
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