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What I Learned in the
Zero Waste Fellowship,
June 26 -
July 13, 2001, Berkeley, Ca.
by Sonia Mendoza
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When I was
invited to take part in the Zero Waste Fellowship Program,
I tried to imagine what the training program would be. I asked
myself if it would be beneficial to me considering the length
of time that I would be away from my home and activities of
Mother Earth Unlimited and the National Solid Waste Management
Commission. The subject "Zero Waste" attracted me.
I realize that this is the way to go towards having effective
and sustainable waste management.
I expected that there
would be lectures, visits to different waste management facilities,
recycling and composting sites and this was what the tight
schedule turned out to be. The program was effective and well
organized. We always looked forward to the day's activities.
The lectures were well interspersed, and the site visits were
relevant to lectures. The other lectures from the gurus of
proper waste management were timed to coincide with the annual
convention of the CRRA (California Resource Recovery Association)
where they were participants.
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| The
Berkeley Ecology Center and the Berkeley Facilities |
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The
Ecology Center Bookstore is a one-stop shop for activities and
materials for environment protection. Books and materials are
simple, very interesting and helpful especially to households
and communities. The Center has 1500 books on environment in
its library. The atmosphere in the bookstore is very friendly
and quite cozy. |
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| Transfer
Station |
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I was amazed at the quantity
and kind of waste being brought to the transfer station. In
the Philippines, most of these wastes will not reach the transfer
stations. They would have been collected and recycled. The
hauling trucks were big and compartmentalized for the different
kinds of discards. People brought yard waste and bulky waste
to the transfer station. A small truck of Urban Ore was there
and discards that could be reused were retrieved.
The most outstanding feature
of the Berkeley trucks is its use of biodiesel as fuel. Biodiesel
is made from used vegetable oil collected from food chains
and restaurants. This is truly an innovative and a welcome
breakthrough in alternative fuel, addressing the particulate
matter and sulfur pollutants of diesel fuel. There is a campaign
to use biodiesel for all diesel engine vehicles in the city
of Berkeley. Each of us rode in a Berkeley recycling truck
and actually collected recyclable discards in the neighborhood.
It was fun and quite an experience. I rode with Ricardo Barilas
in truck #560.
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| Community
Conservation Center. |
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We
had an exciting hands-on experience on sorting of plastic containers,
glass bottles and paper. The facility is community based and
it was an inspiring sight to see people bring their discards
to the buy-back center. Buy-back centers located within a certain
radius of the different sections of the city encourage the citizens
to recycle and this is the situation in the city of Berkeley.
However, in the Philippines, this would not be an ideal situation
because not everybody has a car to transport the heavy stuff.
Manual collection of the recyclable using push carts for small
to medium barangays and small trucks for medium to big barangays
would suffice. |
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| Urban
Ore. |
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This
was something new to me, a Resource Recovery Park that was so
organized and well managed. The main purpose of Urban Ore is
to divert materials from the landfill. Every item was properly
stored for easy accessibility. We have junk shops at home and
discards are not stored as neatly as this because of cramped
and limited space. |
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| The
12 Master Categories of Recyclable Materials. |
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This
was one of the most important topics for me. This gave me a
definite idea on the proper treatment of the different discards
in the waste stream. With the 12 master categories, incinerators
and landfills are deemed unnecessary; zero waste will be easier
to achieve. However, the most important factor in achieving
zero waste is the role of the manufacturing and production sectors
in its design and use of materials in a circular or spiral system;
not the outdated linear system that generates wastes. |
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| Composting. |
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I learned about
the technical aspect of composting, temperatures, moisture and
air requirement. Composting in the barangays is done to address
the putrescibles, which is 50% of the waste in the Philippines.
This immediately takes care of ½ of the waste and the
foul smell. These are the most important reasons for composting
in the Philippines. Soil enhancing and income from composting
are added benefits. However, markets for the compost must be
established to make this part of waste management sustainable.The
methods used here are windrow and worm composting but in large
scales and therefore expensive. |
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These are also used in the
Philippines, but worm composting is not very popular. In the
households, we compost all kitchen waste including dairy products
and meat in pits, pots, cans, and plastic containers. Barangays
with land space use the windrow method while barangays with
no land space use the above ground rapid composting method
with the aid of an activator (usually the lactobacilli strain).
Rapid composting produces compost in 5 - 7 days.
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| Medical
Waste. |
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Intensive segregation at
source is still the basic rule to be followed. The plastic
waste of hospitals, which constitutes about 15% of its waste,
is double that of the household. Special waste that needs
special management is about 10%. Health Care without Harm
should be integrated in the medical curricula. It is a relief
to know that cheap non-mercury thermometers and non-PVC, non-DEHP
IV bags are now available in the US. I hope that these can
be made available and affordable in developing countries as
well.
Social injustice is committed
by states that prohibit medical waste incineration in their
state and ship these medical wastes to another state. Incinerators
are usually located in poor areas. California ships its medical
waste for incineration to Utah and to an Indian reservation
in Arizona. It is ironic that the World Health Organization
still promotes medical waste incineration.
This goes true for electronic
waste. We watched a video on the exportation of electronic
waste to China.
It was very depressing. Countries cannot have laws banning
dumping of e-waste in their dumps and yet allow the exportation
of these to developing countries. This is also happening in
the Philippines. This goes back again to the manufacturers'
responsibility and development of a cyclical loop in their
production flow.
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heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Dave Seabury for the unique
Zero Waste Fellowship presentation plaque made up of 100% recovered/recycled
components. It is prominently displayed in our office.
My appreciation and gratitude
to the Cortesi family, Joanne, Lafcadio, Arianna and Zeffie
(Ann, pls correct the spelling), for my wonderful stay in
their beautiful home for the 3-week duration of the fellowship
and to our good neighbors Rick and Sloan
A million thanks to the Berkeley
Ecology Center and GAIA for sponsoring the Zero Waste Fellowship.
It was a beautiful learning and sharing experience.
To the wonderful people who
made our fellowship training as workable and comfortable as
possible - Ann Leonard (she was our mother hen!) the very
efficient Monica Wilson, Firuzeh, Michelle & Carrie Teiken
(aside from being a terrific cook!) and the very artistic
Gigie Cruz, Andre Carothers (who let us use his house whenever
we felt a use for it and we were always there!), Dave Williamson
(our daily tour guide and companion/resource person who did
not get tired of us!) Martin Bourque (for his graciousness),
& Saras who was always assisting us (she also cooked a
terrific Indian lunch!). And to the gracious souls who let
us use the very beautiful Black Mountain property; also to
Faike & Maureen who were with us at Black Mountain. Thank
you also to Jeff Conant and Elaine Knobbs of the Hesperian
Foundation (Mother Earth will treasure the numerous, very
practical community-based books you gave me).
Thanks also to my co-fellows, Shibu Nair of India and Zini
Mokhine of South Africa, two of the most beautiful people
I've met.They are so young and already immersed in serious
environment work. I learned a lot from their insights and
experiences.
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