by Antonio M. Ajero and Lovely A. Carillo
DISCARDED sanitary napkins and diapers litter the ocean bed and coastal areas of Davao Gulf and are causing the widespread bleaching of coral vital to the life of marine life. This is particularly true in areas near the Island Garden City of Samal, according to Dr. Fred Medina, head of the Davao coral divers group.
Medina’s group participates in the scubasurero’s coastal cleanup drive regularly conducted by thousands of residents and government employees in the waters and communities around the Davao Gulf.
Medina, a physician, said divers and other organizers of the cleanup have never been able to trace the source of the bags of napkins and diapers.
“Ang mga diapers and sanitary napkins nakita namin ay sako-sako,” he said, adding “I will not say na women ang nagtatapon nito. Kasi organized na pagtatapon eh, binalot sa sako, kasi up to the neck of the sack. We don’t know kung galing ito sa isang resort, galing sa isang barko, o galing ano…you know, but it’s there. We found them. Tingnan muna naming sa loob, baka sasabog ang laman. Ang baho naman talaga nito. Hindi mo maamoy pero makita mo yung lumalabas.
“So we don’t know where it’s coming from. But, oh yah, we don’t know kung tinapon ito sa barko, maliit na boat, sa isang resort, o sa isang bahay. So, but meron kaming nakita na maraming diapers nakakalat anywhere. Sometimes more often than not, ang iba, doon naming nakikita sa magaganda nating mga corals. Nakabara ng ganun. So, we have to get that out. Sometimes, naka entangle na. In the process, if you are not too careful, sometimes ang coral napupunit.
Media practitioners who heard Dr. Medina during the Club 888 media forum, speculated that the garbage must have come from either hospitals or inter-island passenger ships.
Another “mystery” is the source of syringes filling the city government bins along Sandawa Street near the Tecarro Hospital.
Answering a question from Rotarian Oscar Paras when he was guest of honor and speaker of the Rotary Club of East Davao last week, City environment and natural resources officer Joseph Felizarta said that under the law and ordinance, hospitals are required to have their own septic vault for some of the hospital wastes.
But Felizarta, a lawyer and civil engineer, admitted that when he assumed office less than a month ago, one of the first things he looked into were reports that most hospitals are throwing their garbage into the open dumpsite.”
The problem of where the more than a dozen hospitals are dumping their special waste is admittedly a big issue, considering that they generate some of the most destructive kinds of wastes.
When Edge Davao wrote to executives of ten local hospitals to inquire where they have been dumping their biological and other wastes, majority were either evasive or refused to answer.
Making do
Republic Act No. 8749, or the Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999, may have elated Filipino environmentalists, but it has created a dilemma among those who have to dispose of their waste the most efficient way possible, including the government.
“The government is still paying millions of pesos on loans that were used to purchase incinerators–especially for hospitals–that have remained unused following the approval of the Clean Air Act which bans the use of incinerators,” Department of Health 11 director Dr. Teogenes Baluma told Edge Davao.
Baluma said the Philippine government is still paying for about $300 million worth of incinerators bought from Europe supposed to be used by hospitals for for waste disposal.
Article 3, Section 20 of the Act bans incineration, or the burning of poisonous-emitting biomedical, municipal and hazardous waste. This does not include the traditional siga being practiced in communities. The law provides for the phasing out of existing incinerators used to dispose of biomedical wastes within three years after approval.
The Southern Philippines Medical Center has a brand new incinerator which has remained unused due to the Clean Air Act.
“It is only in the Philippines where incinerators are not allowed. Incineration is actually the fastest process of cleaning infectious waste in Europe and the United States,” SPMC’s Renato Celeridad said,
Experts claim that toxins in clinical and certain hazardous wastes are easily destroyed by the high temperature produced by an incinerator.
Sans incinerators
Incineration is a high temperature waste treatment system whereby organic substances that are found in waste materials are burned, converting them into heat, flue gas or ash. While the gaseous pollutants in the flue gases must be cleaned first before they are dispersed into the atmosphere, the heat that is generated through the burning of waste material can still be used for generating power.
There are different types of incinerators, but some of them have been proven health risks and environmental hazards. Incinerators are effective in reducing waste mass by up to 85 percent, thus reducing the volume of waste for disposal. Incinerators also help reduce the volume of uncompressed garbage in landfills by 70 percent.
Japan is one country which benefits from the combustion of waste because land there is a scarce resource. European countries like France, Germany, the Netherland and Luxembourg are heavy users of incinerators.
Countries like Sweden and Denmark benefit from the energy generated by incineration. Up to 13.7 percent of the total domestic heat and 4.8 percent of the electricity consumption in Denmark in 2005 came from energy produced by incinerators.
Environmentalists are, however, up in arms against the use of incinerators due to health and environment concerns. This, despite a 2009 report by the Health Protection Agency in the United Kingdom on the minimal effect of incinerators on the local concentration of air pollutants.
The same report shows a 90 percent reduction in the volume of waste due to incineration, thus increasing the life of landfills. The report also indicates higher recycling rates in most municipalities that have incineration facilities.
A report by the Scottish Protection Agency in October 2009 indicated that heavy metals like cadmium, mercury, lead, arsenic, and chromium are emitted in varying levels by incinerators.
Due to the legal barrier against the use of incinerators, private and government hospitals in Davao City are making do with various ways of disposing their waste.
Only SPMC and Brokenshire
Both Brokenshire Hospital and the government-owned SPMC (formerly Davao Medical Center) are using waste segregation of general hospital waste.
Brokenshire generates around 4.5 tons of hospital waste–both biodegradable and non-biodegradable–per month in 2010. This is an increase over the 3.5-tons of waste generated in 2009, and the three tons of waste generated in 2008, both on a monthly basis. Biological waste generated by the hospital amounts to 1.2 percent per month.
The 1,200-bed capacity SPMC on the other hand, generates up to 60,000 kilograms of waste per month, based on the World Health Organization standard of 0.5 kilogram of waste generated per bed.
“Waste reduction at source is being practiced and are segregated,” Reverend Ruben dela Cruz of the Brokenshire Integrated Health Ministries, Incorporated. “Waste from patients’ rooms are collected every shift, stored in the waste storage area and properly marked with warning signs,” he added.
Dela Cruz said waste is disinfected daily with hypochlorite solution. Paper is reused, plastic and other recyclable materials are stored in a recyclable storage area to be sold. At the end of the day, the hospital wastes are collected by the Cenro.
Up to 90 percent of SPMC’s waste is classified as “general” waste and only 10 percent is “hazardous” waste. SPMC’s wastes are segregated so that infectious waste like needles are separated and treated with chemicals.
Celeridad said plastic waste is recycled while paper waste is sold. He said the hospital has a very large compost pit right inside the compound for treated infectious waste.
Although Brokenshire has no dumpsite or pit, dela Cruz said, they have a septic vault for both pathological and infectious waste which have been previously treated at source, labeled properly, recorded in a logbook and endorsed to the housekeeping staff with complete personal protective equipment (PPE).
Dela Cruz said the septic vault is large enough to handle the volume of waste generated by the hospital and is far from being filled.
Brokenshire allocates an annual budget to finance the hospital’s garbage disposal system. “Every start of the fiscal year a budget is prepared and submitted to the finance administrator, who then recommends for its approval to the board of trustees,” he said.
SPMC on the other hand, does not allot an annual budget specifically for garbage disposal as the wastes are collected by hospital employees whose salaries are included in the annual operating expenses.
“We are, however, in the process of putting up for bidding a P20- to P30- billion waste equipment project for the purchase of a shredder and an autoclave machine,” Celeridad said.
Autoclaves make use of heat and pressure to treat solid and bio-hazardous wastes. This process gets rid of fungi and viruses and also reduces the bulk of trash.
Department of Environment and Natural Resources 11 director Emmanuel Isip said the Environmental Management Bureau is closely monitoring hospitals when it comes to their waste disposal.
“So far, all the hospitals in the city are complying with proper waste disposal and there has been no incident involving improper disposal,” he said.
