"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!