Watershed advocacy group Interface Development Interventions lambasted the National Solid Waste Management Comission (NSWMC) for excluding them and other local environment groups from today’s public consultation on the national guidelines on the use of waste-to-energy technologies.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC) was to hold a stakeholder consultation tomorrow, May 13, 2016, at the Apo View Hotel on their newly drafted national guidelines to allow local government units to manage their municipal waste through waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities.
But a sudden change of schedule left the environment groups out of the consultation as the organizers moved the activity earlier today without informing the civil sector representatives.
“This is a public consultation to solicit comments from stakeholders on the proposed national guidelines for waste-to-energy projects. So why did they change their schedule at the last minute without even informing us?”, asked IDIS executive director Ann Fuertes.
Fuertes learned of the change of schedule at noon today. As a result of the rescheduling, not all of the environment groups under the Green Davao Coalition were able to attend,
“Is this a calculated move to ensure that there will be no opposition at today’s public consultation? This is a very important issue; stakeholders should be well represented in the consultation and transparency of discussions should be the rule.” Fuerte said.
IDIS and other members of the Green Davao Coalition have been vocal on their opposition to the city’s plan to construct a waste-to-energy facility because of the negative effects of WTE on human health and the environment.
According to Fuertes, it is crucial that environment groups register their opposition to the plan to construct waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities across the country.
“The waste-to-energy technology is actually a form of incineration that is forbidden under RA 8749 or the Clean Air Act of 1999. By incinerating municipal waste, there is a heightened risk of harmful pollutants being released into the air, land and water which may harm human health and the environment.”, she said.
“We don’t even think that WTE is appropriate to manage the city’s solid waste given that the current volume of our residual waste is not big enough to warrant the energy expenditures needed to burn wastes.”, she added.
If the WTE guidelines are approved, environment groups fear that this be the basis for more WTE projects to be implemented across the country.
“The NSWMC must realize that what it is doing is contradictory to the principles of the Clean Air Act. Burning wastes is not the solution; instead of focusing on residual wastes -which WTE aims to solve- the NSWMC should instead work on implementing a more cohesive and sustainable system of managing recyclabes, digestables, reusables and compostables because these are what the majority of our garbage is usually composed of.”, she pointed out.
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