SOB: Save our bay

It was Cleanup Day the other Saturday. No, we don’t mean that dreaded and dreary day of the week when you have to yank your butt out of bed to clean up your room (of course, you can think of a thousand and one ways to spend a weekend).

The horrendous sea of garbage left by typhoon Marce at the shore of the once postcard-pretty Manila Bay prompted pollution watchdog EcoWaste Coalition, a network of public interest groups, to renew its call for waste prevention and reduction in the metropolis, like stopping the trashing of Manila Bay, a tourist landmark known for its picturesque sunset that is fast fading out of sight.

Says Ben Galindo of the EcoWaste Coalition and the Sagip Pasig Movement, “The huge amount of garbage washed ashore is a sad indicator of our failure to unlearn the environmentally injurious habit of throwing discards anywhere we please despite laws and ordinances outlawing such as ugly practice.”

Galindo laments the nonstop “plasticization” of our lifestyle, where almost everything is now packed in disposable plastic. He adds, “This exacerbates the trashing of Manila Bay as this ever-present packing material is unintentionally or knowingly discarded in streets, storm sewers, esteros, rivers, and illegal dumps.”

In 2006, EcoWaste and Greenpeace conducted a waste audit and look what they found: Plastic discards made up 76 percent of the floating trash found in Manila Bay, out of which 51 percent were plastic sando bags. 

In the same year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) revealed that every square mile of the ocean is littered with 46,000 pieces of floating plastic garbage.The pervasiveness of plastic in the environment, especially in water bodies, should push the government, industry, and civil society to adopt policies and measures that would influence consumer behavior and curb plastic use and the ensuing pollution, such as promoting and providing incentives for the use of eco-friendly alternatives to plastic bags, phasing out certain type and use of plastic bags, and imposing environmental levy on plastic bags.

EcoWaste points out that the unabated plastic pollution should move the National Solid Waste Management Commission into accelerating the much-delayed identification and phaseout of non-environmentally acceptable products and packaging materials as required by Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.

Renewing its call for vigilance against the excessive use and improper disposal of plastics, EcoWaste shares 10 steps that consumers can take towards a healthier and safer environment:

1) Go for eco-friendly substitutes to single-use plastic disposables.

2) Use bayong, old school bags or any reusable carry bags for shopping. (Remember to bring your “green” bag next time you do your groceries at Rustan’s Fresh, Shopwise, and SM Supermarket, among other establishments that have long gone green.)

3) Ask your favorite store to stop the routine practice of dispensing plastic bags by making it a policy to ask the customer first if a plastic bag is required.

4) Avoid products in unnecessary packaging.

5) Work with your family members, neighbors, and barangay leaders for better community recycling.

6) Reduce your waste size by separating at source and reusing and recycling more.

7) Do not litter at all times, pick up litter, and dispose of it correctly.

8) Help in raising community awareness and action against littering and dumping.

9) Pressure local authorities to enforce the law and punish chronic litterers.

10) Participate in community cleanup activities.

Let’s talk garbage. Got any down-to-earth eco-friendly tips of your own to share?

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Bless the breast and the children

With the milk contamination issue still fresh on people’s minds, we got this late-breaking news via e-mail from Baby Milk Action:

Baby Milk Action warmly welcomes the decision by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to reject an application from Martek for a health claim for its DHA and ARA long chain fatty acids for use on follow-on formulas for older babies. Baby Milk Action represents leading health professionals and lay organizations working to protect infant and young child health through the protection of breastfeeding and the protection of babies fed on formula. 

A key concern of all these groups is that parents are protected from misleading and irresponsible marketing and that they also receive truly independent, evidence-based information on which to base their decisions about infant and young child feeding.

The groups  sent submissions to the EFSA and the EU Commission  calling for all health and nutrition claims to be rejected on the grounds that they mislead the public and at the same time, undermine breastfeeding, the optimum way to feed babies both before six months and afterwards (alongside family foods).

Baby Milk Action calls on all baby food companies to improve the quality of their products. Ingredients should be added only when proven, through an independent review of evidence (which should contain a good proportion of independently funded research) that it is safe and improves the formula.   It should then be added to all formulas as an essential ingredient — not promoted with a health claim which is so misleading and promotional.

While there is no doubt that essential fatty acids are important in infant and young child nutrition, research results remain inconclusive about their efficacy when added to formulas. Moreover, questions remain regarding the safety of the processes and ingredients used. 

Baby Milk Action has for years worked with Glenys Kinnock and other MEPs to ensure that the EFSA scientific committees are transparent and that members declare their financial links to industry. The new rules were brought in in 2000 following complaints that the lack of transparency had resulted in undue influence on EU policy making — and in particular the EU directives covering the marketing and composition of breast milk substitutes. 

Says Patti Rundall, OBE, policy director of Baby Milk Action, “This news is extremely welcome, coming at a time when companies are stepping up their marketing of follow-on formula with appalling TV adverts which imply that these unnecessary products are better for health and development and even protect babies from infection.”

 Such marketing is used all over the world, including China, where so many mothers now believe that these milk formulas will make their babies cleverer. The stark fact is that artificial feeding is always a risk to infant health and UNICEF and WHO estimate that 1.5 million babies die each year because they are not breastfed. 

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We’d love to hear from you. E-mail us at ching_alano@yahoo.com.