Quezon City-based zero waste advocates
expressed dismay over a resolution adopted by the City Council asking the House
of Representatives to lift the ban on waste incineration under two of the
country’s foremost environmental laws.
Von Hernandez, Sonia Mendoza and Joey Papa, QC residents and vocal
environmental leaders, decried such move by the city’s councillors, warning
that tinkering with the incineration ban under R.A. 8749 and R.A. 9003 will
cause a death blow to ongoing waste prevention and recycling initiatives and
lead to further degradation of the environment.
R.A. 8749, the Clean Air Act, prohibits the “burning of municipal, bio-medical
and hazardous wastes, which process emits poisonous and toxic fumes,” while
R.A. 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, promotes “the adoption of
best environmental practice in ecological waste management excluding
incineration.”
“This is regressive and despicable move on the part of the City Council.
Not only does it betray the QC government’s utter inability to implement real
solutions already prescribed in law. It also shows that these politicians
would not hesitate to burn and waste taxpayers’ money on polluting facilities,”
said Von Hernandez, President, EcoWaste Coalition.
“What is being presented as a ‘quick fix’ is actually a scheme to increase the
already stratospheric costs of waste management and disposal in QC. The
public has a right to ask who will be benefitting from this proposal,” said
Hernandez, who is also the Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
“The trouble with ‘quick
fix’ measures is they usually compound the problem. Waste-to-energy
incinerators will compound the garbage problem by increasing health hazards
from waste. What QC needs is to aggressively reduce the garbage it produces by
securing cooperation of residents. That may be long and slow but it is
sustainable,” said Shalimar Vitan, Asia-Pacific Coordinator, Global Alliance
for Incinerator Alternatives.
Mendoza, President of the Mother Earth Foundation, reminded the councillors that “incinerators emit loads of
pollutants, including cancer-causing dioxins that can put the health of people
at grave risk.”
‘nothing to worry, it’s zero emission,’ but even the most technologically
advanced waste burners with expensive, high-tech emission control devices still
emit various contaminants, often failing emission standards,” she said.
“And in whose backyard are they planning to dispose of the hazardous ash after
combustion?,” she asked.
Joey Papa, President of Bangon Kalikasan Movement said that “incineration
terminates the resource cycle and competes with recycling, which is beneficial
for the people, the economy and the environment.”
dangerous technology, our city officials should focus on optimizing recycling
and providing incentives for households to separate their discards at source,
recycle and compost,” he said.
incineration ban under the two laws has, among others benefits, prevented waste
resource from being converted into hazardous ash, prevented pollutants from
contaminating the air, water and soil and the food supply, and prevented funds
from being wasted for expensive, imported and unnecessary materials destruction
technology.
R.A. 9003 would have assisted in eliminating waste and pollution and move the
nation to a more sustainable path through the adoption of zero waste principles
and practices,” they said.