Monday, October 08, 2007
Knowing how to segregate your garbage
WITH the Baguio City Government keen on enforcing the “no-segregation, no-collection” policy, household members need to learn (finally) to classify their waste lest they contribute to fouling up their barangays and then blame others for the stink they themselves produce.
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The policy was tried before but the city eventually relented and collected the mounting piles of non-segregated trash. It brought back to square one the push towards zero-garbage management.
No compromise this time, Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. said in his weekly press conference last Thursday.
It’s difficult, he admitted, but sees it as a learning process, especially for households taking segregation for granted. So how do households segregate?
They need four bags or bins, one each for biodegradable, recyclables, residuals and special trash.
As it’s difficult, they need not look for a bigger receptacle for a fifth kind of garbage classified as “bulky”, which is also often heavy.
Barangays or their clusters under the so-called “material recovery facility” are supposed to collect bio-degradable and recyclables. The city, under the policy, will collect only residuals, special and bulky garbage.
Biodegradable include fruit and vegetable peelings, leftovers and spoiled food, vegetable trimmings, fish scales, egg shells, seafood shells, animal entrails and carcasses, corn cops and sheaths, rice hulls, peanut shells, wet paper and newspapers, cardboards, coconut shells and husks, seeds, garden grass clippings, manure of pet, poultry and livestock, chipped branches and sawdust.
If it’s not on the list above, include the waste if it will rot or is capable of being decomposed by biological agents like bacteria. This quality of rotting makes the garbage biodegradable.
Recyclable refers to garbage that can be reprocessed and used again. Dry paper, news paper, cardboard, cartons, plastic containers and caps, tin cans, iron, steel, broken glasses, toner cartridges, computer casing and ink cartridges, PVC and PE pipes are recyclable.
If the junkman buys it, it is recyclable.
Into your residual bag go sando bags, packing wrappers, styropors, worn-out plastic sacks, dirt from sweepings, worn-out rags, sanitary napkins, disposable diapers, plastic straws, parlor and barber shop waste, household medicine bottles, colored broken glasses and coco fiber from cushions.
Normally, residuals are those that can’t be recycled through normal processes. They include cigarette butts.
Special waste includes paint and thinner containers, spray canisters, household and lead-acid batteries, pharmaceutical waste; spoiled, spilled, expired cosmetic waste; and used oil filters, broken tiles and lamps.
In third world countries, bulky garbage -- destroyed television, radio and stereo sets, washing machines, dryers, stoves, broken furniture, filing cabinets, book cases, beds and cushions, especially cars -- are seldom thrown away until they’re beyond repair.
The city’s garbage team will collect these if you want together with used rubber tires and garden debris.
Bautista has again appealed to household members to do their part towards waste segregation -- at the source. It’s actually the nth appeal from the city which earlier relented by collecting garbage which were not segregated.
This time, the “no-segregation, no collection” policy stays, said City Environment Officer Colleen Lacsamana. (RD)For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Manila. (October 8, 2007 issue)
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