EDITORIAL - Our first zero-waste island, hopefully not our last

Apo Island in Negros Oriental, already known for its marine reserve and viewing deck, among other attractions, has made Philippine history by becoming the first zero-waste island in the archipelago.

According to reports, the residents of this island located in Dauin Town have successfully implemented proper waste segregation, door-to-door collection of said segregated waste, composting methods, and the use of a Materials Recovery Facility.

Their efforts didn’t go unnoticed.

“We want to recognize Apo Island for their amazing work on their Zero Waste journey. We want to acknowledge their hard work and to encourage them to sustain it and do more,” said Froilan Grate, Asia Pacific regional coordinator of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), in a press release dated last September 18.

This is quite a feat, when you consider that Filipinos in general have a bad reputation for being litterbugs.

Of course, we cannot say that what worked in Apo Island will also work in other places in the country. The place is an island after all; it is easy to disseminate ideas and implement policies in smaller places where everybody knows almost everybody.

The good news is that more and more local government units around the country are finding their own tailor-made solution to this problem. An LGU in Ilocos Norte is now building eco-bricks from garbage, mostly discarded plastic, while some LGUs in Samar and Leyte now allow their residents to exchange collected plastic wastes for food and rice.

While these are far from being total zero-waste solutions, they are a step in the right direction. When you have a country with many people who really don’t care about where their garbage ends up, that’s a start.

Garbage management is a growing problem that will soon become too big to ignore, literally. We see this already happening in our major urban centers.

We hope that soon more and more LGUs around the country will find the zero-waste strategy or strategies suitable to their situation, location, and circumstances, including our own Cebu City.