(This article was published in 2005 for my column, Envirowatch, in the college newsletter, Citadel. This was written upon return from my US graduate studies. Some of the ideas may still be or no longer relevant)
For the
past two years, we have witnessed a stark increase of our population from
merely around five hundred to over a thousand students. Our college has grown
so fast that we need to keep up with our instructional facilities and equipment.
An increase in population can be seen as a development for our college but can
be a headache in environmental management.
This
column is devoted to current issues and trends pertaining to environmental
sciences and engineering. On the next few articles, I will be writing some
topics ranging from Kyoto Protocol to our own Clean Water Act. We will also
cite some worthwhile endeavors by our LGUs in their pursuit for clean and green
environment.
But let
us set aside first concerns in the global and national arena. Why don’t we look
first at our own backyard? My first day of work in USM after two years of
hibernation is full of “green questions”. I cannot help but notice the enormous
problems that we have in our campus environment. I cannot help but say, “Are we
environment-friendly?”
On this
particular episode of my column, I will devote every byte of my thoughts to our
current solid waste management as well as our current state of air quality.
Solid
Waste Management in USM
The
growing number of our students is equated to a considerable volume of waste
generated. Our college serves as one of the service buildings of the university
academic complex. As such, we also serve as a “disposal facility” for wastes
generated by our faculty and students both from CENCOM and other transient
occupiers. Needless to say, they turned our classrooms, lobbies, and hallways
as virtual “dumpsites”. Of course our
janitorial services tried everything to cope up with the cleaning demand but
still end up with a little “Payatas” right beside our Teakwood Park.
This
scenario is not confined in CENCOM. Other service college buildings followed
the same fate as ours. We should not be complacent regarding this issue. Solid
Waste Management is becoming a serious business in the Philippines.
Did you know that a dozen mayors is facing possible fine and prison terms for
not following the provisions of RA 9003 otherwise known as Ecological Solid
Waste Management Act? What are the main reasons for their prosecution? They
simply did not close their open dumpsites. What are open dumpsites, by the way?
We will not go far. Our garbage pits near Babu’s
canteen, is by technical definition, an open dumpsite. And RA 9003 says this
type of dumpsite should be closed by now and should be converted to a
controlled dumpsite. By February 2006, all these type of disposal facilities
should be converted to landfills. We
even violate RA 9003 as well as the Clean Air Act by burning these wastes!
We simply
need an Integrated Solid Waste Management in USM. We
can implement two strategies - waste diversion and source reduction – to reduce
our stockpile of solid waste.
Though
not thoroughly characterized, we can say that a large proportion of solid
wastes are paper products. This should give us a happy thought since paper can
be collected and sold to recycling plants. Other wastes are biodegradable in
nature (e.g. leaves, yard trimmings). We can create a compost pile for these
resources (I’d like to call them resources than waste). If we can implement
this diversion tactics, we can significantly reduce our need for a disposal
space.
Source
reduction, as the name implies, is trying to reduce waste by not creating them.
Some examples are:
a) Imposing double-sided printing for our
reports and documents.
b) Encouraging students not to use cover
sheets and folders for their term papers, etc.
c) Use of single spacing for final reports.
d) Why not submit draft theses in disk? In
this way, an adviser will just edit the work and give it back to the concerned
for final printing. It would save paper which would certainly end up nowhere.
e)
Encourage the use of reusable workbooks.
Why not buy and sell used workbooks?
f)
Consider littering as cheating (?)
Worsening
Air Quality in USM
You have
to spend the first 15 minutes of lecture listening to the sound of… (music? Ha
ha). The rush hour is simply a nightmare. Daig
pa natin ang mga urban campuses sa
ingay at usok.
Of
course, we can certainly translate that to technical terms. An overloaded
motorcycle can emit more particulates. Two-stroke engines are less efficient,
thus, would only emit more burnt fuel into the air in every work they impart.
In other words, only few drops of gasoline are being used to carry our butts
around the campus, we inhale the rest. There is smog around the campus.
I must
say that it takes political will and careful thought to address this problem.
We have to consider livelihood. We can certainly not ask tricycle operators to
stop servicing our university. But we can do a little to ease the problem:
a) Encourage students to walk from their
boarding houses to school. That means start walking at around 6:30 am or 12:30
pm. Sometimes, it will also take you 30 minutes riding a tricycle to CENCOM via
IASA, ULS Science, CHEFS, and Annex
b) Perhaps re-schedule some classes in a way
that not all would start at 7 am or 1 pm. Some will start 15 or 30 minutes late.
In this way, the polluted air can be diluted and dispersed.
c) Why not implement a shuttle bus (multicab)
system? Kung pwede sana electric jeeps!
d) Use
bicycles! Sa mahal ng pamasahe, bicycles
are worth investing. Student governments may opt to implement a bicycle loan
for students.
(A sequel will be written shortly comparing USM then and now, in terms of environmental consciousness)
(A sequel will be written shortly comparing USM then and now, in terms of environmental consciousness)
