"END CLIMATE SILENCE"

“End Climate Silence”

By Alan S. Gensoli

These were the words on the banner held up by an environmentalist who heckled Mitt Romney at a campaign rally last week. “What about climate?”, he yelled back as the Republican candidate asked the crowd to donate to relief efforts in the wake of Sandy. “That’s what caused this monster storm. Climate change!”, the protester argued. He’s right. Donations are needed now, but breaking “climate silence” is critical for tomorrow. 

Environmentalism is multi-faceted, with aspects of it in varying degrees of popularity. When politicians need to appeal to the green vote, they talk about the most celebrated of these. Solid waste management, the advocacy of this column, obviously is not the poster boy of the green campaign. Thanks to Al Gore, taking on climate change has become a politically convenient truth. The rest of us use a candidate’s familiarity with climate change as a yardstick to measure his or her green-ness. Someone who tackles climate change is more likely to address solid waste management than somebody stuck in reproductive health or the sin tax, or party list purging, or charger change, or what to do with Imelda’s jewels.

How American politics has marginalized environmentalism reflects so much how our own politicians in the Philippines snub what is, indubitably, the most essential matter to confront now for the sake of the next generation. As soon as Gloria Arroyo signed Republic Act 9003, our solid waste management law, she forgot all about it. If that isn’t enough, I am stupefied to learn that Sen. Chiz Escudero is the chairman of the Joint Oversight Committee on Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, the official title of the abandoned R.A. 9003! What about it, Chiz?

Mitt Romney’s battle cry is economic recuperation. He wants to bring back businesses that once fled for cheaper China. To do this, he must bring down the cost of doing business, including the cost of energy. To do this, he must turn America into Guangzhou, where pollution is so thick you can’t see anything from your hotel room window. Indeed, Romney has been frank in telling all that he will build coal-fired power plants from sea to rising sea, because coal energy is supposedly cheap. Mitt is slow. Our PNoy has already lined up coal-fired power plants for Zamboanga, Sarangani, Bataan, Subic, Iloilo, and Negros Occidental, in the wake of warnings from former Energy Sec. Jose Almendras that we will have an energy shortage by 2015.

I do not argue with the forecast of Sec. Almendras or the plan of Mitt Romney. I argue, however, that we could have avoided this no-way-out eventuality, partially or totally, if we cared to prepare for green energy a long, long time ago. Why, explain, does Ilocos Norte have wind power generators providing 40% of the area’s power needs? Does wind pass through Ilocos Norte exclusively? Without foresight we will be pressed to accept the unpleasant, like coal-fired power plants. Backlash to Romney’s plan to build coal-fired power plants will be easily outweighed by the exigency of the times, desperate need for employment, for economic recovery. And so, Romney is cocky about coal. Ditto our local politicians. May I know, what did Sec. Almendras do towards moving green energy forward in the two years that he sat as Energy Chief? Warn us about 2015? Don’t bring us problems, Mr. Secretary. Bring us solutions.

I have a solution. If ANYWAY we’re already doomed to burn coal to generate power, and if ANYWAY we’re already resigned to be willing contributors to the carbon footprint, why not burn municipal solid waste instead? By doing so, not only will we generate power, we will also manage our trash, unclog our waterways, and prevent floods. And what we save from flood relief operations we can then channel towards green energy research. These are broad strokes, I admit, but they are worth pursuing.

I derive my most compelling argument for burning municipal waste over burning coal from the Oct. 30 Editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, “Cooling on coal”. National Renewable Energy Board Chairman Pedro Maniego, Jr., confirmed that the P7 per kWh feed-in-tariff rate for biomass power is in fact lower than the approved 2011 rate for coal power. COAL AIN’T CHEAP AFTER ALL! In the Philippines, our sources of biomass energy are diverse, including MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTES, animal wastes, and agricultural wastes, like sugarcane bagasse, rice hull, coconut husks. With 15 million hectares devoted to agriculture, why unearth scarce reserves of coal, when we can turn garbage into energy resource?

Up for re-election in 2013, Sen. Loren Legarda is back in the news. I suggest we support a line-up of senatorial candidates who, we think, will help our environmental cause along. This could not happen in 2010 because we were fighting over one presidential post. Perhaps it can happen now since we are filling a dozen senatorial seats, allowing us latitude for collaboration. Let me start the list: Dick Gordon, Mig Zubiri, Jun Magsaysay, Cynthia Villar, eco-warrior Nancy Binay, and Sonny Angara, author of the Renewable Energy Law. You may not like some of them for personal reasons, but this is not about you. This is about the environment.

Today we will wake up to the results of the American presidential elections. An Obama win celebrates the power of climate change. A Romney victory foretells its wrath. God bless America, indeed.

Photos by Adam Welz, 350.org, taken at New York City's Times Square the day before Superstorm Sandy.

NOV. 1 TRASH IN MANILA CEMETERIES DROPS

The Metro Manila Development Authority's Metro Parkway Clearing Group reported collecting up to 76 truckloads of garbage from 10 major cemeteries in Manila immediately following this year's All Saints' Day observance. Meanwhile, the Phil. Daily Inquirer bared that in 2011, the North and South Cemeteries alone produced 200 truckloads of trash. There was a clear decrease in the amount of plastic bags, attributed to recent campaigns by Metro Manila cities to regulate or ban them. Also given credit were volunteers from the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation that collected recyclables from six cemeteries, effectively taking these materials our of the garbage stream. (Based on reports from the Phil. Daily Inquirer, 04 Nov. 2012.)

BOY BAWANG, 3-IN-1 COFFEE MOST NOTORIOUS TRASH

Servathon 2012, a project of Hands On Manila, collected some 5 tons of trash along the shores of Freedom Island just off Paranaque and Las Pinas. The most popular forms of trash were wrappers of BOY BAWANG and 3-IN-1 COFFEE. Over 1,200 volunteers joined this year's Servathon, coming from different companies, including the Phil. Daily Inquirer, BPI Foundation, Cibo, FEU, HSBC, JP Morgan, Pancake House, True Value, Wells Fargo, etc. Let us support these "green-hearted" brands. (Based on news reports from the Phil. Daily Inquirer, 28 Oct. 2012)

DOST does not endorse Biomate

DOST does not endorse Biomate

By Alan S. Gensoli

This is part of my crusade against plastic bags that claim to biodegrade even when I doubt that they do. In my Sept. 12 column, “Barking Up at the Wrong Tree,” I mentioned that the Dept. of Science and Technology put out in the news that they have this additive called Biomate which, when applied to plastic bags, will cause the plastic bags to “biodegrade”. Quotation marks are purely mine to maintain my doubt over what exactly the DOST means by “biodegrade”.

I have in my possession a photocopy of a document issued by the DOST’s Industrial Technology Development Institute (DOST-ITDI), dated March 2010, and referred to as an ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY VERIFICATION, more particularly ETV 08-013. It reports on tests done on plastic shopping bags containing the additive MB BIOMATE BM-205. I would like to share with you the Disclaimer, issued by the DOST-ITDI, that appears on the front cover of ETV 08-013, to wit:

“The ETV Statement is the result of an impartial, consensus-based approach to evaluating innovative environmental technology in accordance with the ETV Technical Protocol. The data presented are believed accurate and the analyses credible. The statements made and the conclusions drawn regarding the product evaluated do not, however, amount to an endorsement or approval of the product in general that it will always operate as verified.

“The ETC Report is based from an evaluation actively supported by the DOST-ITDI ETV Group, the Panel of Experts and First in Colours Incorporated. The implementation of this ETV was undertaken with the cooperation of Licton Industrial Corporation, the manufacturer of plastics containing the additive, MB Biomate BM-205.

“Mention of commercial product name does not imply endorsement.”

ETV 08-013 requires that the report be cited in full, so in fairness I will refrain from excerpting from it. My concern really is with the disclaimer where the DOST-ITDI stops short of endorsing Biomate and issuing warranty on Biomate’s consistent performance. This is where I have a major, major problem; government introducing technology and then turning around to say that it cannot vouch for the integrity of such technology, opens the door to deceit. In this case, the DOST opened the door for unscrupulous businessmen to claim that their plastic bags contain Biomate, even if they don’t, just because government does not have the wherewithal to inspect. If that’s the case, the DOST should just have shut up about Biomate.

This strategy of government leaving us to our defenses indeed leaves industry, market, and advocacy puzzled and at odds with each other. We want government to step into the ring, as it were, and make a declaration for or against Biomate. I need government to issue a statement saying that Biomate is the answer to our solid waste management problem, IF AT ALL THAT IS TRUE. I need government to declare that Biomate will cause the transformation of chemicals used to create plastic bags to simple gas, IF AT ALL THAT IS POSSIBLE. But then, I also need government to crack down on all plastic bags without Biomate, as well as those that pretend to contain Biomate (and I am not endorsing Biomate here, ok?). I am not alone in this longing for some government control. In a position paper issued by the Phil. Assoc. of Supermarkets, Inc. (PASI) on the use of plastic shopping bags, members are actually calling for a “uniform practice imposed by law…to avoid different practices based on what local governments require”. Truly, absent of an ordinance completely banning plastic bags, the only thing that keeps supermarkets from shifting to paper bags and reusable satchels is the threat that others in their rank might stick with plastic bags which, unfortunately, are still preferred by shoppers. And so the good guys lose business. The national government should level the playing field with a law that demands uniform practice, in the same manner that I need government to come in and require all plastic bags to be made with Biomate, ASSUMING THAT BIOMATE IS GOOD.

But why assume? Let us stick to facts. Fact #1: The majority of so-called “biodegradable” plastic bags out in the market today are oxo-biodegradable. Biomate proponents say that oxo-biodegradable plastic bags, because they contain Biomate, degrade in two steps. First, ultraviolet and thermal energy from the sun cause the plastic bag to photodegrade. Second, substances naturally produced by microorganisms in the soil cause it to “biodegrade”. Fact #2: Article 6, Section 41, Letter (e) of Republic Act 9003, our solid waste management law, provides that garbage sent to the sanitary landfill must have “a daily cover placed over the waste….” These facts are, therefore, in direct conflict. Granting for the moment that the two-step degradation process is correct, covering trash will block the sun’s ultraviolet and thermal energy, preventing photodegradation, rendering oxo-biodegradable plastic bags with Biomate useless. Following this argument, because oxo-biodegradable plastic bags with Biomate are incompatible with sanitary landfills as described by RA 9003, no company should be flaunting plastic shopping bags labeled “Biodegradable” at this time. Unless you want us to give up sanitary landfills all together and stay in the Dark Ages with our stinking open dumps. BOO! Happy Halloween to you!

TARA NA'T MAGLAKBAY ARAL SA SANTA MONICA

Local government units in the Philippines better save up their "lakbay aral" funds and just do one grand trip to Santa Monica, California, where the construction of the GREEN STREET is now underway, scheduled to be finished in 2013.

The Ocean Park Blvd. Complete Green Street is a collaboration of John Kaliski Architects, landscape architects Lawrence Moss & Associates, and civil engineers Kimley-Horn & Associates. As the Architect's Rendition (top photo courtesy of John Kaliski Architects) shows, the project is a comprehensive plan that includes a bicycle lane, bike racks, outdoor furniture, and recycling and trash receptacles. Of particular interest is a system that reduces flooding and water run-off to Santa Monica Bay.

As the actual photo shows (bottom photo courtesy of L.A. Creek Freak blog), gutters have water inlets where rain water enters and passes to bioswales. Bioswales are patches of landscaped land between the gutters and the sidewalk. Here, water feeds the vegetation. Any excess water exits through water outlets and out to the bay, this time at a much lower quantity than before.

Another aid in conserving rain water is the use of porous asphalt. The lanes closest to the gutters are paved with porous asphalt that allows more rain water to seep into the ground. The bioswales and the porous asphalt create a watershed within the urban center. How brilliant is that?

I don't see these systems as rocket science, and they probably will help us solve our own flooding problems. Our DPWH, DENR, and DOST should work together to adopt this technology.

STING DUMPS SM MOA ARENA CONCERT VENUE

IF WE CAN MOVE STING, WE CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS.

STING has decided to move  his December 9 concert from the SM Mall of Asia Arena to the Smart Araneta Coliseum after realizing that the holding company for SM-MOA Arena and SM Baguio are one and the same. Recently, a campaign on social media was launched to boycott the concert because of the pine trees that will be cut down for the expansion of SM Baguio City. Sting is a known supporter of environmental causes. His decision to take his concert out of SM-MOA Arena secures his place in the hearts and minds of many Filipinos as a quintessential performer and modern-day role model.

This is a clear victory for "tree huggers", proving that there are enough of us to make real change. But will the change of venue of Sting's concert actually save the pine trees in Baguio City? More significantly for SM,  can this successful campaign be duplicated to boycott other SM businesses, including its malls, supermarkets, stores, and real estate developments, until all pine trees are left alone and all plastic bags are left out?

BACOLOD CITY BEGINS PLASTIC BAG BAN

I was at BOOKSALE Robinsons Place Bacolod today when I was informed by the cashier that they have shifted from using plastic bags to brown paper bags. According to her, the store was informed that starting November stores in Bacolod City will no longer be allowed to use plastic bags. Nov. 23, 2012 is the start of the implemention of the city's ordinance regulating the use of plastic bags and styro boxes. The cashier added that stores that will continue to use plastic bags will not be allowed to renew their business permits. In a text message, Bacolod Councilor Em Ang, author of the ordinance, confirmed that to be the "decision reached by the TWG during the drafting of the IRR..." That's political will.

NOW, Bacolod truly deserves its award as the most livable city in the country. CONGRATULATIONS and THANK YOU Mayor Bing Leonardia, Vice Mayor Thaddy Sayson, Councilors Em Ang, Al Victor Espino, Bobby Rojas, Ceasar Distrito, Mona Dia Jardin, Homer Bais, Carlo Lopez, and all our councilors who support this move. We enjoin all Barangay Captains, of whatever political leaning, to make the ban successful in their respective communities.

DOST Thou Biodegrade?

SOMETHING SMELLS—17 October 2012

DOST Thou Biodegrade?

By Alan S. Gensoli

Certain societies recycle certain types of plastics because of their access to certain types of recycling technologies. Logically then, absent of these technologies, recycling cannot take place. San Francisco and Boston, for instance, totally ban the use of plastic shopping bags because a curbside recycling program that would take plastic bags is not available. In places where plastic bags may be recycled, people are even required to bring their bags to the recycling facility. Would they? When in doubt, an outright ban is more practical. It seems, this is not the case in the Philippines. Here, instead of banning the plastic bag, we label it “biodegradable”. Here, we allow plastic bag manufacturers and retailers to dupe us into “buying” their idea of  “biodegradable” plastic bags because we are generally an accepting lot, quick to assume that “biodegradable” means “compostable”.  And here lies our basic problem: We get lost in translation. I am not a scientist, nor have I ever pretended to be one, but I refuse to be detoured by gobbledygook from what my eyes can plainly see: plastic bags clogging waterways, causing floods, contaminating groundwater, emitting carbon, etc., etc., etc.

Even while on vacation with family, Mother Earth Chairperson Sonia Mendoza does not take a break from sharing information that is urgently needed to help along our knowledge about solid waste management, in this case, knowledge about plastic bags. The documents she sent me vindicate my suspicion that some plastic bags that claim to be biodegradable are, in fact, not compostable, which is what we want. Also, that the act of confusing the public may be a conscious corporate decision to take advantage of a population that is largely indifferent. Let us rummage through the web of terminologies: Degradable, Biodegradable, Oxo-Biodegradable, Biomate.

DEGRADABLE. This is the short form of the word “biodegradable” so it has no more significance beyond that. Suffice it to say that “degradable” is not popularly used, often read in scientific papers and heard in scientific speeches for or against petroleum-based plastic bags. 

BIODEGRADABLE. This is the long form of degradable, but the more often used, popularized by its appearance on plastic shopping bags. For this reason, I have criticized the indiscriminate and impulsive use of the term. “Biodegradable” is a motherhood word that encompasses all plastic bags that break down. But the process and the end-products differ considerably. Petroleum-based plastic bags disintegrate or fragment into particles known as plastic polymers, because that’s what petroleum-based plastic bags are made from. We cannot expect petroleum-based plastics to break down into organic form. We cannot expect an apple tree to bear oranges, can we? Plastic polymers in open dumps seep into the ground and contaminate our groundwater source. Or, they can wash away through our canals and out to sea where they will threaten to choke sea creatures. Meanwhile, starch-based plastic bags, because they are made from corn, potato, cassava, and the like, will decompose into organic matter, as leaves and wood will, as well as paper bags, coffee cups, and food take-out containers made from carton. Also known as “compostable” plastic bags, they must, however, decompose within 90 days, not from one to five years! The word “biodegrable” innocently puts both types of plastic bags together, giving the bad a chance to look good. It is little wonder then that plastic bag manufacturers and some supermarkets use “Biodegradable” on their plastic bags. If they are sincere, they should print OXO-BIODEGRABLE.

OXO-BIODEGRABLE. This is the official word for petroleum-based plastic bags. Thus, even those who make this kind don’t mention it, nor print it on their plastic shopping bags. Nothing compels them to do that, certainly not their business sense. Besides, why should they when “Oxo-Biodegradable” is also “Biodegradable”? As my favorite fruit vendor in Vietnam would say, “same same but different”. Petroleum-based plastic bags will disintegrate into toxic polymers through exposure to heat and oxygen. This presents another disadvantage. Because they require heat and oxygen, the bags must be kept in open garbage dumps, not in covered sanitary landfills. Pretty logical but horribly wrong, because now we justify using open dumps to justify using plastic bags, and vice versa. Furthermore, we learn that petroleum-based plastic bags will take over a thousand years to disintegrate. Independent tests reported on Mother Earth News claim that plastic bags have been hung out in hot, arid conditions for months, in the end showing no visible sign of disintegration. 

 BIOMATE. Several weeks back, the Dept. of Science and Technology said that it has a product, called Biomate, that when sprayed on plastic bags (we assume petroleum-based), will cause the bags to biodegrade. Can I spray that on my apple tree to pick oranges in Spring time? I am not trying to be difficult, facetious maybe, but we must stay on guard against biodegradability claims that come in organic wool. As it is, our plastic bag situation is bad, so that to opt for a wrong solution just because it is ready and cheap will send us straight to the fire. Starch-based plastic bags are expensive, I know, but if the DOST declares that only starch-based plastic bags may be used, I am sure that manufacturers will gain economies of scale to make this accessible to all. Until then, katcha!