| Every day, Metro Manila
produces 6,000 tonnes of garbage, much of which ends up in
Hernandez’s current hometown of Quezon City. Quezon
City is home to Payatas, the region’s biggest dump and
the focus of international headlines in 2000 when a rain storm
caused the dump’s mountain of garbage to collapse, killing
at least 300 people and destroying more than 500 homes. Since
incinerators were being touted as the solution, Von and his
colleagues informed local communities that waste incinerators
are the largest source of hormone-disrupting dioxins, one
of the most toxic chemicals known to science.
The incineration process produces ash with concentrated amounts
of heavy metals, such as lead, arsenic and cadmium which,
when buried, pollute groundwater for generations. These chemicals
have been linked to birth defects, cancer, respiratory ailments
and reproductive dysfunction among people who live near incineration
plants. A recent report found dioxins in the breast milk of
Filipino women who live near and work in the Payatas dumpsite
to be many times higher than the health limit set by the World
Health Organisation. Hernandez helped turn the incineration
controversy in the Philippines into a national electoral issue
in 1998 and an incineration ban was finally approved in the
Clean Air Act of 1999. Philippines thus became the first country
in the world to ban waste incineration nationwide. Today,
he is at the forefront of a heated battle to hold the ban
in the face of government corruption and industry pressure.
We reproduce below Von Hernandez’s acceptance speech.
“On behalf of all communities fighting incinerators
worldwide, I thank the Goldman Foundation for this recognition.
It is a welcome change from the countless insults that our
victory has provoked.
While the battle against incineration has been won in
the Philippines, our war on waste is far from over. Incinerator
proponents have not stopped campaigning for a repeal of the
ban. International funding institutions continue to dangle
the carrot of soft loans for the construction of modern incinerators
disguised as sustainable waste management solutions.
Meanwhile, more and more communities in the Philippines
are demonstrating the wisdom and superiority of zero waste
programs for managing society’s discards. For us, these
communities epitomise the enduring triumph of common sense
and public participation over ignorance, greed and apathy,
which dumpsites like Payatas and Smokey Mountain have come
to represent.
These modern-day museums of corporate irresponsibility
are burning reminders of everything that is wrong with our
throw- away society, and with the corrupt system that bedevils
the life-blood of our nation. While Filipinos have made a
tradition of mounting bloodless revolutions to depose corrupt
presidents, the power of our people has yet to bring about
a true process of positive renewal against the culture of
corruption, inefficiency and incompetence in government.
As such, we will endeavour to cleanse our society by making
waste a key issue in next year’s presidential elections.
Now more than ever, we need leaders who possess the vision,
the creativity and the will to transform a festering problem
into an opportunity that will energise our communities and
free ourselves from the misery and hopelessness symbolised
by our notorious mountains of waste.
Paradoxically, amid poverty and squalor lie hope and redemption.
In a community in Smokey Mountain, you will find good old-fashioned
hope in the efforts of a priest organising the women, the
youth and the jobless into a recycling cooperative. In the
middle of a garbage dump, a community garden comes to life.
The people who make this happen are the real heroes in the
war for sustainability. Their vision and boldness inspire
people like myself to work for the greater ideals of life,
community, governance, nationhood and the environment.
The war on waste is a war against greed, ignorance, incompetence,
and apathy. This is the war that needs to be waged. It is
also a war that needs to be won if we are to liberate our
societies from the treadmill of overconsumption. If ever there
was a just and moral war that needs to be fought and won,
this is it. The wastefulness of our societies is compromising
the ability of nature to sustain our needs and those of future
generations. The war on waste reminds us that the general
direction of rescue and redemption for our planet lies in
better humanity more than better technology. Thank
you and let’s all work together to build a better world
for our children."
© Ecologist Asia, Vol. 11, No. 2, April-June 2003: Too
Toxic! India's mounting toxic burden |
