Metro Manila’s waste generation up in 2011

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje is urging parents to make an effort of teaching their children on proper waste segregation especially in Metro Manila where people dump more garbage than before.

To do this, parents or older children can come up with creative ways to segregate waste such as selling collected empty bottles and old newspapers and magazines to the neighborhood junk shop.

The move came at the heels of studies made by the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) showing Metro Manila’s daily waste generation has risen to 8,746 tons recently from 8,400 tons in 2010.

The same data show the capital region of 15.5 million people represents a 24-percent share in the national daily waste generation of 35,000 tons in 2010.

For its part, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) had intensified its information and education campaign with the distribution of easy-to-understand leaflets and brochures in barangays in Metro Manila.

Metro Manila’s local environment officers also pledged to farm out the materials to households, in coordination with barangay officials.

“Our primary goal is to make solid waste management understandable to all, even by little children,” Paje said.

He also called upon local executives to reproduce the materials as a step to widen and speed up the circulation of the printed materials within their respective constituencies.

MMDA General Manager Corazon Jimenez said that the DENR’s intensified campaign for mandatory segregation shores up the agency’s efforts to bring down Metro Manila’s daily waste generation by 50 percent.

By Virgil Lopez