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[av_heading heading=’‘Hala bira! Hala basura!’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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Tuesday, January 24, 2017
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THE MORNING after the Dinagyang Festival, we were greeted with a familiar sight – Iloilo City’s downtown was full of garbage and very smelly. This widespread littering and defilement of the city has been happening every Dinagyang and speaks of the low regard people have on the environment, the value of cleanliness, and solid waste management.
The assorted discards that piled up included food leftovers, food packaging, bamboo skewers, polystyrene containers, plastic bags, plastic bottles, soiled newspapers and cigarette butts. Most of these were non-biodegradable. We are saddened by the lack of respect for the environment by the Dinagyang revelers who simply left their discards lying on the ground for others to pick up. It seemed that the appeal for a trash-less celebration by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources had fallen on deaf ears.
We could have made Dinagyang more unique from other trash-inducing festivals by minding our waste. And we could have made it more solemn (it is, after all, a socio-religious-cultural affair) and meaningful by keeping our environment clean. But what we instead saw were people mindlessly tossing their trash wherever. This was clearly a deliberate affront on the environment, a violation of our solid waste management law, and an obvious lack of regard to public sanitation.
And what happened was doubly disappointing. After all, January is Zero Waste Month!
While we commend the city government’s waste and sanitation workers for picking up the litter that others have left, we believe the Dinagyang revelers should take full responsibility for their garbage and stop being a burden to others and the environment.
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