Filipino climate activists yesterday marked World Environment
Day in the historic Plaza Miranda in Quiapo, Manila with a call to stop wasteful
consumption and disposal that is "warming the planet."
The participants, led by the Eco Waste Coalition and the
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), made a pitch for a "Zero
Waste" approach to protect the climate and the environment.
World Environment Day is actually celebrated on June 5, but
Eco Waste and GAIA opted to advance their commemoration of the event by a day.
Film actress Chin-Chin Gutierrez, recognized by Time Magazine
as one of the "Asian Heroes" for her environmental advocacy, graced the creative
event, holding a placard that says "Go Zero Waste for Zero Warming" next to a
huge globe depicting a hurting planet that is up to its neck in waste that
ranged from paper to "e-trash" such as discarded keyboards and compact discs.
Gutierrez said World Environment Day this year is "not a
happy celebration because the situation is already critical."
She called for increased awareness on proper waste disposal,
saying that "a war against nature is a war that mankind would lose." She cited
the flashfloods and landslides that are besetting many countries.
"We need to double time because scientists have been saying
that we are at the ICU level. The world can heal itself but global warming is
making it very hard," she added.
Manny Calonzo, GAIA coordinator, said those who are poor and
who live close to the seas are the ones who are most affected by climate change.
The event coincided with the release of "Stop Trashing the
Climate," a new report published by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
(Washington DC), Eco-Cycle (Boulder, Colorado) and GAIA (Berkeley, California)
that affirms Zero Waste as a top climate protection strategy.
The report documented the link between climate change and
unsustainable patterns of consumption and wasting, dispelled myths about the
climate benefits of landfill gas recovery and waste incineration, and offered a
roadmap for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
It said "zero waste", which involves, preventing waste and
expanding reuse, recycling and composting programs is one of the fastest,
cheapest and most effective strategies to protect the environment and offers at
least 10 times the amount of jobs as landfilling and incineration.
It said reducing the materials buried in landfills and burned
in incinerators is equivalent to closing a fifth of all US coal-fired power
plants, the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country.
It said waste disposal is linked to more than a third of all
US greenhouse gas emissions and that landfills are huge emitters of methane, a
potent greenhouse gas.
It also said Incinerators emit more carbon dioxide per
megawatt hour than coal-fired power plans and waste three to five times more
energy than recycling conserves.
The report recommended the setting of local and national zero waste targets,
eliminating subsidies to waste disposal, and ending the practice of waste
incineration. It also called for an end to the practice of land filling and
incinerating biodegrable materials, thereby preventing potent greenhouse gas
emissions.
