More background: Solid Waste

There was monsoon rain in the morning today so the kids had the day off school. I guess they probably get up in the morning amid such monsoon rains with the same sort of animated excitement that I used to experience when I saw a good snow storm blowing outside as a kid. The difference may be that they mostly end up at internet cafes (that don't actually sell coffee), and I ended up getting my faced washed with snow by my older brother and (bad) company.

My friend Sean and I have been assigned to the "Solid Waste Management" research area while here. It's been interesting the past week trying to make heads or tails of how things work, but I think we're starting to get a hold on things (mostly). Do you remember that public awareness ad in the 80s that showed an irresponsible father throwing garbage away and explaining to his kid that it was okay because the garbage simply "went away"? That is (or was?) the problematic Canadian experience with garbage: we never had to deal with the consequences of garbage because we couldn't immediately see them. Our country is so big, we seldom see the extent of the damage we're doing to the environment.

Here it is quite different. There are about 4000 islands that comprise the Philippines, and the majority are filling up with garbage. They produce (per capita) much less garbage than we do, but they don't have the space to hide it. So garbage literally ends up on the streets, in the rivers, illegally dumped at the periphery of poor communities, etc. They have proper dumpsites, but they are fastly filling up, or are simply not used by some. In any case, there is no "away".

The community we're in, Plaridel, is one of the above-average municipalities in terms of their active stance towards waste management issues. They've started neighbourhood composting/recycling facilities, increased their budget for WM, and have made clear and deliberate strides in the general direction of achieving sustainability. But they have a long way to go. That, I guess, is where Sean and I come in. ... more next time.