Zero waste doable this 2024 Sinulog?

Thank you to host Atty. Kristine Joy Argallon and co-host Atty. Princess Vivar for a very informative/lively discussion about “Sustainability in the New Year: Efforts to ensure the realization of our SDGs through Zero Waste Efforts in Waste Management.”

This was the theme of the CCTN-Partners in Law January 2024 Episode (in partnership with Justice Center (PEJC)) which was taped last Monday, January 15 and aired last Wednesday night at 10 p.m. via CCTN Channel 47. There is a replay today, Thursday, at 3:30 p.m.

Those interested to watch this episode may also search for Partners in Law-CELLA on You Tube or FB link -https://www.facebook.com/share/p/zPShzX4BiMU9WBxb/?mibextid=I6gGtwhttps://www.facebook.com/share/p/zPShzX4BiMU9WBxb/?mibextid=I6gGtw

RCE-Cebu (Regional Center of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development) was happy to share about Zero Waste and especially about our ongoing free training on Kitchen Wastes Composting and Options for Other Waste Types that any sector, group/organization/barangay/parish/offices/businesses/others can avail of.

Interested groups can send to [email protected] or +639277334940 the following info:

1. Training Date 2. Training Time 3. Training venue (barangay/city/province) 4. Number of participants 5. Name of Group/organization/Bgy/Office/School requesting training. 6 Contact Person 7 Contact details -cellphone number – email/FB address.

This training initiative, in partnership with VHC of Netherlands, hopes to encourage all to practice Zero Waste wherever they are, through kitchen waste composting, producing paper charcoal balls and new recycled paper from paper wastes and to practice individual ecobricking to better manage plastics and prevent plastics to harm water bodies and water resources soonest.

Is Zero Waste doable and realistic in Cebu, in our country, throughout the world?

Let us try to better understand what zero waste means.

Zero Waste International Alliance defined zero waste as:

a) “the conservation of all by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health,

b) a goal that is ethical, economical, effective, efficient, and visionary, to guide people in changing their lifestyles and practices to emulate sustainable natural cycles, where all discarded materials are designed to become resources for others to use, and,

c) designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, conserve and recover all resources, and not burn or bury them. “

Unlike conventional waste management systems that focus merely on waste reduction and disposal, and incurring high costs and harm to people, communities and environment, zero waste:

a) reverses the traditional waste hierarchy on its head. Instead, Rather than on disposal, Zero Waste focuses instead on waste prevention, avoidance, reduction through segregation and resource management;

b) reduces/averts the adverse environmental, economic, and health impacts of waste and improves resource (economic) efficiency, expands/maximizes gains and benefits rather than costs and harm to people, economy, environment, and planet;

c) addresses the source/cause of waste - the current linear economic model of take–make–waste. Instead, zero waste advocates cradle to cradle circular economy rather than the conventional Linear-Open-Loop-Cradle to Grave Economy; and finally, and more importantly,

d) recognizes inclusivity and multiple stakeholders’ participation in contrast to traditional waste management systems where governments take the lead and sole responsibility for waste governance/policy/implementation- mainly involving expensive/wasteful/harmful truck-based waste collection and disposal to dumpsites/landfills.

Zero waste, is “into a more values based ethical approach, which recognizes the human centred, sociological basis of waste, that refocuses on the criticality of integrated multisectoral participation to maximize the value of resources and thus recycle/ recover/conserve natural resources.”

With hands not only raised in worship but in segregating/separating waste, with everyone/all sectors, and especially with the Catholic Church’s active advocacy/commitment to care for God’s world as advocated in Pope Francis’ Laudato Si, can Cebu’s 2024 SINULOG show the whole country/world that Zero Waste is doable/possible?