To spend or not to spend?

Happy October to all, the happy month of Mama Mary of the Rosary! With so much challenges happening now all over the world, including our country, Mama Mary is asking all to please, please pray the rosary every day, especially with your family, if possible.

Let us include in our prayers the enlightenment of those who will decide whether to spend millions of public funds for disposing or managing waste through so-called technologies to convert waste to energy or instead, to use the millions to energize and help the hungry, the jobless, the sick especially among the children and elderly in Cebu City.

If welfare services are not their priority, let us also pray that those who will decide on the millions of public funds will prioritize projects that will save people (drainage and flood control system, disaster resiliency training and preparation- certainly, not prioritizing any building but with focus on a working system or network).

We agree sincerely with all who wish to see a cleaner city, with those who wish to have a proper and effective waste management system. There is disagreement, however, about how to properly and effectively manage waste. There are those who wish to go to the core of the waste problem: waste generation- how to make everyone, wherever they are, to effectively manage their OWN waste, emphasis on the term OWN. IF everyone learns to segregate, learns to recycle, reduce, reuse still usable items and learns how to manage both biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste where they are, then there will be less waste to dispose of everywhere throughout the city. With less waste, there will be less need for expensive garbage collection systems and definitely, less need for any expensive disposal or waste to energy conversion systems and locations.

The problem with waste is never its disposal alone or solely. The problem with waste lies with those who generate waste. An effective waste management will have to go to the level of the original source and cause of waste and start the effective waste management program there. For as long as waste generators are not made responsible for their OWN waste, expect the volume of waste and all its corresponding risks and dangers to health of people, of communities, of environments, of Mother nature to escalate. The knee-jerk response to manage waste and what seems easiest to do (and what seems to have been done through the years) is to increase the number of garbage trucks and personnel, look for alternative new garbage disposal sites, and spend as much public funds as possible, giving and treating waste with more personnel, more vehicles, more lands, more funds than are given needy human beings!

If waste generators and waste generation is the start of the waste problem, why spend millions for solving waste only for waste disposal or conversion? If waste generators are effectively motivated and trained to properly minimize and segregate their waste, then the waste volume and disposal will not be the problem.

Why waste millions of public funds to dispose of waste when what we need to allow to happen is the inexpensive campaign to have everyone be responsible for effectively managing/segregating their waste at home, in their communities, at the offices, in public and elsewhere.

The late DILG Secretary Robredo has successfully done this for Naga during his term as Mayor. Then Brgy. Captain and now Cebu City Councilor Nida Cabrera has turned around Brgy. Luz as a shining model of effective community waste management, VM Al Arquillano of San Francisco has successfully sustained effective waste management networks all the way to the puroks, all WITHOUT wasting precious millions of public funds for waste disposal. Spare the millions for people, not waste!

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