Dear friends,
GAIA Secretariat brings to your urgent attention
and action a disturbing high-level policy pronouncement from
the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that threatens the explicit
ban on all forms of waste incineration in the Philippines
as enshrined in the country's Clean Air Act of 1999.
In a press conference held yesterday, 18
June 2001, Mr. Gunter Hecker, ADB Country Director for the
Philippines, said that the government might need to reconsider
its total ban on incineration to solve the escalating waste
problem of Metro Manila. The ADB official thought that the
Government should revise or amend the ban to address the garbage
woes of the metropolis.
"We are looking into this garbage situation
and we found that the fact that the incinerators are prohibited
in toto, this may cause problems for the garbage situation
and the environment of Metro Manila. We think this is an area
where a second look would be required," said Mr. Hecker (Business
World, 19 June 2001).
"I think this technology should have not
been excluded outrightly as this technology is improving and
sometimes in certain types of garbage, the only way the get
rid of it is through incineration," he added (People's Journal,
19 June 2001).
GAIA finds ADB's prescription to lift the
incineration ban outrageous, disrespectful and bad for the
environment, economy and health of the Filipino people. We
therefore urge all GAIA members and our partners in other
allied networks to criticize ADB's push for waste incineration
and ask the regional bank to cease providing distorted prescriptions
on waste management and end funding for materials destruction
methods, including waste incineration and related technologies.
STEP ONE: We urge you to fax or e-mail
your letter of concern/protest to the ADB through:
Mr. Gunter Hecker
Country Director
Philippines Country Office
Asian Development Bank
Fax #: +632 - 6831030 or 636 2444
E-Mail: ghecker@adb.org
(Note: The ADB has resident/extended/regional missions and
representative offices in several cities. If appropriate and
practical, please seek an appointment with the concerned ADB
officer in your country to personally discuss your concerns
about waste incineration. ADB has offices in Colombo, Dhaka,
Islamabad, Karachi, Kathmandu, New Delhi, Bangkok, Dili, Jakarta,
Hanoi, Manila, Phnom Penh, Vientiane, Astana, Bishkek, Tashkent,
Beijing, Port Moresby, Port Vila, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Washington
DC. The ADB website (www.adb.org)
will have their contact details).
You may feel free to modify the letters with your own insights
or experiences:
We write in response to your recent statement
suggesting that the Clean Air Act (1999) of the Philippines
should be revised or amended, particularly the ban on waste
incinerators. We find it ironic that your statement comes at
a time when the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is urging governments
to adopt a "new approach" to stop Asia's "pervasive, accelerating,
and unabated" environmental decline. We ask you and the ADB
Boards of Governors and Directors: Is waste incineration part
of this "new approach"?
Is it not ironic that the ADB is pushing
for a discredited waste disposal technology that produces
large amounts of pollution - both air emissions from burning
and ground water contamination from ash disposal - while seeking
to halt the worsening environmental degradation in the region?
Instead of promoting a polluting technology, we urge the ADB
to endorse non-combustion, non-polluting, economical and ecological
approaches to waste management.
Is it not scandalous to know that the
ADB is espousing a waste disposal method that produces Persistent
Organic Pollutants (POPs) while the rest of the global community
is working towards their reduction and ultimate elimination
as directed by the recent Stockholm Convention? Instead, we
urge the ADB to stop prescribing POPs-producing technology
and support efforts to eradicate dioxins and other POPs in
the environment.
Is it not strange that the ADB is asking
governments to have "a strong political will to translate
environmental rhetoric into actions" while asking the Government
of the Philippines to water down the Clean Air Act? The ADB
now wants to weaken this very expression of political will
by advising the Philippine government to lift the incineration
ban. We urge the ADB not to meddle with the decision of a
sovereign people and instead back the efforts of the Government
of the Philippines and the civil society to fully enforce
the law.
We have often observed that multilateral
banks and other financial institutions to be promoters of
waste incinerator projects - leading to situations profitable
to both the financial and waste incineration industries, but
damaging to public health and the environment. We hope that
the ADB would not seek to create such situations in the Philippines
and elsewhere.
Your signature.
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