The environment department’s Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) plans to put up more waste-recycling facilities for Metro Manila’s over 1,700 barangays.
Based on figures from the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC), there are only 943 materials-recovery facilities (MFRs) in the National Capital Region (NCR) serving 964 villages or barangays.
“We can further help provide materials-recovery facilities to barangay units for use in solid-waste management,” said Marivic Quides, EMB chief for ambient air and water monitoring at the NCR, during a coastal cleanup activity at the Manila Bay last week.
The agency joined the annual International Coastal Clean-Up Day, themed “Trash-free Manila Bay,” which aims to highlight what experts say as the link between pollution in Manila Bay and land-based human activities, such as the discharge of municipal, industrial and agricultural wastes.
In 2008 the Supreme Court ordered the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and other agencies to clean up, rehabilitate and preserve Manila Bay, so that its waters can be fit for contact recreation.
During last Saturday’s coastal cleanup at the back of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Complex in Pasay City, among those collected were water hyacinths, bamboo poles and driftwood, some of which had been carried by the currents from nearby Bataan and Cavite provinces.
“About 30 percent of waste we recovered were bamboo poles and driftwood,” noted RR Salvador, operations superintendent of Pasay City’s City Environment and Natural Resources Office, which has jurisdiction over the CCP Complex.
Salvador said the Pasay City government promotes the use of bamboo and driftwood as materials for making various items to help reduce waste and provide the residents livelihood.
“Pasay residents, particularly those in Barangay 76, where CCP Complex is, make furniture and other items using the bamboo and driftwood we recovered,” he said.
