“To Be Made New in the Attitude of Your Minds”

This was in the November 30 reflection of Joyce Meyer’s The Power of Being Thankful:

Ephesians 4:22-24: “to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

What an appropriate prayer for Mayor Mike and the Cebu City officials, I thought, as I remembered The Freeman November 29 news report of Caecent No-ot Magsumbol about Mayor Mike’s statements related to the need for the city “to improve its solid waste management.”

As we warmly welcome Mayor Mike back to Cebu from his trip to Singapore, we also welcome his latest statements for more effective waste management for the City.

We pray that effective city waste management system goes beyond or reconsiders the present garbage collection/disposal system.

Waste is never just any useless item with no more value.

Waste is a resource that can still be used, in a circular fashion, away from disposal to dumpsites, landfills or incinerators.

We pray that Mayor Mike and the rest of the city officials “be made new in the attitude” of their minds regarding waste management.

Disposal should not be the goal.

Resource management of segregated waste should be the better option to protect our planet Earth, to benefit people and communities.

When Mayor Mike articulated “the need to sit down to come up with better solutions,” we pray he meant better, alternative options to the present garbage collection/disposal system which will never decrease the volume of wastes improperly disposed of in dumpsites/landfills, which harm people/communities like Binaliw, and, which contribute to global warming, among other social/economic/environmental crises.

We agree with him about waste reduction and more responsible waste management.

The city, however, has focused largely on garbage collection/disposal.

We propose the City should invest in waste segregation: education, campaigns and collective, participatory initiatives.

This means serious waste segregation campaigns where everyone, every household, every community, organization, church, school, business, industry is encouraged to practice how to separate and manage different waste types: kitchen/biowastes (organics), paper, plastic, metal, bottles and so on.

Segregating/managing kitchen/biowastes (organics) alone, Mayor Mike, will remove 50-60% of waste from the city’S total waste volume!

 Can you imagine how much savings this will bring to the city, how much dirty, smelly, unhealthy mixed wastes can be avoided from disposal sites, how much less/no “hot spots” will be needed just with household, community, institutional organics’ waste segregation?

Waste segregation can be a form of daily prayer -  everyone’s daily eco-offering (DEO) of restoring God’s creations back to Him, our planet and our people!

Mayor Mike, can you imagine what a wonderful world you will create if you seriously push for the implementation of waste segregation and proper management of various types of waste items?

Rather than dispose kitchen/biowastes/organics, for example, these can be composted which can be used to grow healthy vegetables/herbal plants that will meet the food and health needs of all residents!

Once everyone, every household learn how to compost their kitchen wastes alone, hunger and food supply will be solved!

Their compost can also be sold as fertilizer thereby providing for livelihood and sustenance for city households, residents and communities!

Mayor Mike, if you continue the present garbage collection and disposal system, you will continue the legacy of unhealthy dumpsites (hotspots), increasing budget/costs for garbage collection/disposal, continuing waste volume increase, land/air/water pollution, global warming, continuing unemployment, poverty, food scarcity, hunger, homelessness, among other problems!

Why not healthy/beautiful gardens, food, livelihood and more benefits instead?

May the Lord touch you and the city officials “to be made new in the attitude of your minds” and consider waste as resources to be segregated and managed effectively.