Small Acts, Big Impact

It’s been a week already since the Davao City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) garbage truck passed our village to collect our garbage. The supposed two times a week schedule during Tuesday and Friday most often are not being followed. There are times that they collect our garbage once a week but not on the exact day and time. That is why there are times our garbage rot and so we find other ways to dispose of it. What we do is hire trisibot and ask the driver to throw the garbage on the highway at an appointed time usually around 7 in the evening where the garbage truck usually passes by everyday. It costs us 50 pesos though but on the other hand a good trade off as such if we will not do it we will stink with garbage.

I wonder why the problem on garbage collection still prevails mostly on interior areas just like in our village. That same scenario existed already more than 10 years ago. It might be that we are producing more garbage from the household today. With that the CENRO may not have enough garbage trucks and collectors to spare in order to follow the supposed schedule of collecting garbage. I hope the CENRO would look into this problem.

As for the household, we should also see to it that we should lessen the garbage we are disposing. Let’s reduce, reuse and recycle (3Rs). By doing so we could help our government and our environment at the same time.

On another note, garbage not disposed of properly seems to be one of the reasons why flooding occurs in some areas in the city when it rains. Plastic cellophanes and bottles clog our canals. As I observed, we are using more plastics today than 50 years ago. My aunt who is 72 years old shared that during her younger days when they go to the market to purchase rice, the seller use paper bag as rice container. The fishes were wrapped in banana leaves or old newspapers. And for oil, my aunt said that they bring their own glass bottles for it. Same with soy sauce and vinegar of which were also sold in glass bottles. Before, they don’t have sachet for shampoo and other plastic containers which end up in canals and rivers nowadays. And yet, in those years the city did not experience any floodings.

Also, as population increases so our garbage increased also. But it’s not too late. We could do something about it. Let’s start in our own homes by segregating our waste into two category, the dry and wet. The dry can be a source of the 3Rs and the wet can be used for composting if we have a large area. If none then we throw it away but segregated from the dry waste. Doing said small acts by many will indeed, produce big impacts.

“The waste products in Earth’s crust are also the human in this expanded, spectral sense. One’s garbage doesn’t go ‘away’ – it just goes somewhere else.” – Timothy Morton