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[av_heading heading=’EDITORIAL’ 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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It starts in the barangay
THE WAR against drugs is being brought to the barangays, the smallest administrative division in the country. Good grassroots governance can do a lot in this campaign. Why can’t we do the same in solving one of our most severe problems, solid waste management? Greater grassroots leadership and action to solve the never-ending garbage woes is important.
We appeal to all barangay officials to also make zero waste resource management one of the cornerstones of their programs for cleaner and healthier neighborhoods. Barangay-led ecological movements to eliminating waste are our best alternative to costly and polluting waste disposal technologies that contribute to ill health and climate change.
We have Republic Act (RA) 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 but this is useless if not enforced in our 41,994 barangays. This law provides for a comprehensive and environment-friendly approach to managing discards mainly through waste prevention, reduction, segregation at source, reuse, recycling and composting. It empowers the local government units, especially the barangays, to proactively manage the community discards in ways that will not harm the environment.
Under RA 9003 the barangay is tasked to develop an ecological solid waste management program, promote waste separation at source, enforce a segregated collection for biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste, and establish Materials Recovery Facilities (MRF) in every barangay or cluster of barangays. The MRF is essential in systematically managing and reclaiming discards, which would otherwise end up in waterways, dumpsites or landfills and result to the formation and release of toxic leachate, greenhouse gases, persistent organic pollutants and other chemical threats to community health and environment.
Indiscriminate littering, dumping and burning of discards are fast becoming a national culture. We need to put our acts together if we want to stop these destructive practices that blight and poison our surroundings. Effective barangay leadership and action towards zero waste will not only clear our neighborhoods of litter and pollution; it will also open up concrete opportunities to raise people’s ecological awareness and responsibility as well as create employment and livelihood from the reuse, repair, recycling and composting of waste resources.
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