Senator Loren Legarda Hit the Point Pro-Incineration Proponents Missed

“As debates on incineration gets hotter, what the pro-incinerators have been missing, Senator Loren Legarda nailed hard.”

This is the statement that the zero waste and climate justice advocacy network EcoWaste Coalition said in a press release to reiterate their point that the real problem in relation to the garbage crisis that the nation is facing lies in the lifeless implementation of the 13-year old Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 or RA 9003, which Sen. Legarda principally authored and sponsored.

“We applaud Sen. Legarda for renewing her call to enforce RA 9003 and we reiterate the same to rouse non-compliant national and local government entities from their long slumber resulting to the lethargic implementation of the waste law,” said Aileen Lucero, National Coordinator of EcoWaste Coalition.

In a press release, dated October 10, Sen. Legarda pointed out that “if we only take that first crucial step of actually trying to [implement the law], maybe we could have already reached 100 percent full compliance rate 13 years after the law was enacted".

“The fact that there are (RA 9003) compliant LGUs only means that it is doable and there is no reason why other LGUs could not follow suit. I hope our leaders will have the political will to implement the law at full speed, especially now that we are facing threats of extreme weather events that can trigger environmental disasters…,” Sen. Legarda said.

Lucero took a step further by stressing that incineration, instead of solving our waste problem, will in fact worsen it.

“While RA 9003 mandates waste avoidance and reduction through segregation at source, recycling, composting, establishment of materials recovery facilities, and the prohibition of non-ecologically acceptable products and packaging; incineration, on the other hand, incites the public to waste more to ensure feedstocks for the perpetually hungry waste burners, terminating the resource cycle, demolishing green jobs and contaminating the environment with toxic pollutants,” Lucero continued.

“Still and all, no other than Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for Environment 2012, expressed his concern over so-called waste to energy vis-à-vis recycling. He said in a press release, dated 21 September 2012, that ‘a dominance of energy recovery over recycling is not acceptable in the medium-term,’” the Coalition emphasized.

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References:

http://senate.gov.ph/press_release/2014/1010_legarda1.asp

http://www.lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2001/ra_9003_2001.html

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-12-632_en.htm?locale=