People in government and businessmen have bigger stakes in the care of the environment but you and I are not exempted from doing our share. We can actually be a spark by starting it right in our own homes. Let us start on where we put our wastes, our garbage.
Residents of urban communities specially Metro Manila dispose their solid waste through landfills. Garbage are collected from the communities and brought to the landfills for disposal. With the Philippines experiencing rapid population growth and lack of suitable disposal sites, garbage or where to put them, became a major problem. When Gloria Macapagal Arroyo assumed the presidency of the Philippines in January 2001, the first act that she signed into law dealt with solid waste management. It includes among other things the segregation and disposal of solid waste.
Waste segregation became a byword in the airwaves, public places and schools. When my children were in elementary, they were taught about which things are biodegradable and non-biodegradable. They became adept on to which bin to throw their waste. In the School of the Holy Spirit where my daughters go, the green bin is for biodegradable waste, the yellow one is for recyclables and the red is for non-biodegradable.
Though color-coded garbage bins can easily be bought from factories, they could cost a fortune. Empty big cans of biscuits, paints, cooking oil and drums are perfect substitutes. They should be painted for easy identification of the kind of waste that should go in. When waste are properly segregated, the recyclables can be sold to the scrap dealer, biodegradables can be made into compost. This way the amount of garbage to be disposed in the landfills is decreased remarkably. If we practiced proper segregation, would the havoc brought by Ondoy in September 2009 be that massive? It cannot be denied that the floods were primarily caused by waterways clogged by garbage.
