Hayes, Joy L. MS-EST-1 4.

) Write an article (around 500 words) to let people know about RA 9003 (The Philippine Ecological Solid Waste Management Act)Focus on 2 aspects you consider important. Include suggestions as to how the readers may be involved in these aspects. RA 9003 Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 This Act was created to provide systematic solid waste management program to minimize and avoid environmental dilemmas in present and future generations. There are set of guidelines and rules in the Act about how to dispose of the solid waste,produced by anthropogenic activities. Procedures discussed and detailed include; proper segregation, collection, storage, transport, treatment and disposal of solid waste. The Act also suggests using waste minimization techniques to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfills. These include; source reduction,(such as recycling) re-use and composting. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources works, also supports LGUs (Local Government Units) in the implementation of their solid waste management plans. Certain penalties and sanctions are set forth in the Act following failure to comply with the laws stated therein. The DENR acknowledges projects promoting effective solid waste management whether by individuals, government, or non-government institutions.Help includes both fiscal and non-fiscal means, for example financial assistance programs, extension of grants to LGUs and incentives to hold LGUs. It has also created a Solid Waste Management Fund to finance LGUs approved plans. From my point of view, WASTE SEGREGATION is significant aspect of the Act. Segregated materials can be re-used or recycled to create new products for other purposes. Segregation and recycling can often fail to save as much on paper as it does in practice. One way to ensure the efficiency of segregation is to ensure households comply with the procedures. The Act clearly states that segregation of solid wastes -primarily conducted at source- is mandatory. It indicates who must provide waste bins in designated areas, and explains how proper characterization of waste (such as the compostable, recyclable, non-recyclable and special waste) is important. Currently, correct segregation and its procedures are not practiced by most households but there are ways to change this and help kick start this environmentally-sound procedure. For example, people could form an active group committed to recycling in their neighbourhood. The size of such a group could vary from a nominal 5-10 households or even if well organized include as many as 20-30 households. A small group that is successful can always grow to include new household. A leader would be nominated for the group to facilitate local (micro) waste segregation activities; in large groups delegated tasks could be shared. They could hold weekly or monthly meetings and discuss their successes and failures and continue to seek ways to improve adherence to RA 9003. This forum of households could also help promote general awareness about segregation and recycling. Campaigning may also be an activity, encouraging other groups to form. It would be a voluntary commitment and act as a stepping stone to minimizing solid waste in the community. If applied nationwide these micro efforts would soon have a macro effect on the environment. To make this idea come to life, LGUs should consistently support these kind of community ideas by providing appropriate bins that would accommodate their waste volume; they could be colored and labeled according to waste types. These bins should be placed in areas accessible to this group and to the collection crew. Advice and offers for experts to come and talk directly to such a group would also be useful. A direct liaison between the government and

the people is always very difficult to create, especially from the dry words of an Act. People respond to people and nothing would be better than government trained experts coming to meet and talk with groups of people who support the environment through recycling. The second aspect I consider important in this Act is the COLLECTION & TRANSPORT of solid waste. Its good that this Act has imposed set of standards and requirements about collection procedure. However, in reality this is not happening as well as it should, in the community. Most of the collection vehicles dont have compartments for every waste type. Waste collection vehicles mostly dont have covers to ensure the containment of the collected discarded materials. This however, shouldnt be hindrance to achieving our aims. As concerned citizens we can speak out and let the government know about faults in the system. We can directly complain about substandard solid waste collection. Often local government cant monitor every neighborhood. Its a task in itself and requires money to send monitors who observe and report about waste collection. So everyday people can act as eyes and give feedback directly about how they feel about waste collection in their area. The government could then do thorough evaluation of the transport vehicles and improve its functionality by putting up waste compartments for the segregated waste materials. With the government and the community working in synergy, the ability to achieve our goal is in sight. Real reduction of our waste materials IS possible. Its important not just to leave this Act as a piece of paper collecting dust but to enforce it actively so it comes alive and works for us. We cant blame the government if we are not willing to do our part as members of the community.