Sustainability and Waste Management (Part 3 - Seven Rs in Waste Management)

            Dr Abe V Rotor 
                          Living with Nature - School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday [www.pbs.gov.ph]            - 

The 7 Rs in Waste Management

Smokey Mountain dumsite

1. Reduce -  plan to limit potential waste
2. Replace with environment-friendly materials  
3. Regulate depends on effective governance
4. Recycle - re-use in original or new form.
5. Replenish. “Pay back” what you get from nature. 
6. Reserve for tomorrow, next generation, posterity.
7. Revere - reverence for life, respect creation.

 The Limits and Drawback of Recycling

Natural Phenomena vs Man-induced Disasters Floods which are accompanied by erosion and siltation do occur, but become frequent and worst with the destruction of watershed.

Recycling on the farm should avoid non-biodegradable materials such as

•         Plastics

•         Oils

•         Metals

•         Shells, rocks, glass

Watch out for toxic materials

•         Toxic metals: Cadmium, Mercury, Lead

•         Hospital and medical wastes, including radioactive materials

•         Pesticide residues, especially dioxin

•         Industrial wastes, like acids, Freon, alkalis

Oil Spill Recycling – no way.

•         Not with hydrocarbon compounds; not in the case of oil spill. The Petron oil spill in Guimaras in 2005 destroyed thousands of hectares of marine and terrestrial irreversibly upsetting ecosystems and depriving the residents of their livelihood.  

Recyling is not recommended where pollution  is heavy and unabated such as this mudflat.  Silt in clean environment is excellent garden soil. (A tributary of Pasig River

 Inefficient technology generates wastes.

•         Such is the case in sugar milling as observed at CADP, Nasugbu, Batangas. Sugarcane bagasse continues to accumulate in spite of its many uses as fuel, glass making, manufacture of paper and cardboard. 

•         Many companies simply throw their waste into waterways.  Example: Mine tailings are simply dumped into the river gorge of Benguet, flowing down the sea and polluting rice fields.  
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Important Notes on Recycling 

1. Recycling helps moderate global warming, the buildup of heat in the environment from increased human activity in a postmodern world. Recycling offers opportunity to everyone in doing his part in combating global warming, and the effects of El Niño

2. Recycling corrects the growing imbalance of acidity and alkalinity of the soil and water (pH value). Too acidic or alkaline conditions lock up available nutrients useful to life, affect the physiology of living things. Recycling buffers acid rain which is responsible for the death of whole ecosystems like forests, coral reefs, and destruction of fields, pasture, seas, and even valuable pieces of art.

3. Recycling is not ideal where monoculture is practiced, thus it aims to lead farming back to a system of multiple cropping and integrated farming. Tri-commodity farms – production of crops, animals and fish – are best suited to recycling, and guarantee the gains in recycling itself.

4. Self-contained farming is therefore an important condition for recycling to succeed - and that recycling in return insures the success of the other. It is in principal and practice imitating nature. There is no formula in keeping our environment healthy and balance. This is indeed the answer to spiraling prices if farm inputs, and the decreasing productivity of farms.

5. E. Schumacher pointed out in his thesis and book, Small is Beautiful, that being small after all, is the alternative to corporate failure, the inability of bigness to adjust to change, analogously like “dinosaur syndrome”, which explains the failure of these primitive giants to survive abrupt change of their environment.

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God in the trees  

    Nature Prayer

When my days are done,

let me lay down to sleep

on sweet breeze and earth

in the shade of trees

I planted in youth and old;

and if this were my last,

make, make others live

that they carry on the torch,

while my dust falls

to where new life begins – 

even an atom 

let me be with you

dear Mother Earth. 

                          - avr

References

1. Cabiokid (2008) PowerPoint presentation by Bert Peeters

2. Enger ED and Smith BF (2002) Environmental Science, A Study on Interrelationships 8th ed McGraw-Hill
3. IRRI (2002) Rice Production Special Supplement, Los Baños, Laguna
4. PCARRD (1999) Processing and Utilization of Crop Residues, fibrous
Agro-Industrial By-Products, and Food Waste Materials for Livestock & Poultry Feeding, DOST
5. Rotor AV (2004) The Living with Nature Handbook UST Publishing House
6. Rotor AV (2007) Living with Nature in Our Times, UST Publishing House
7. Rotor AV (2008) Living with Folk Wisdom, UST Publishing House
8. Rotor AV (2007) Learning Biology, Manuscript