MANILA – Environmentalist groups have marched on Tuesday in the Philippine capital to protest a plan by lawmakers to lift the incineration ban in the country, saying, it would worsen the pollution and poses health hazards to humans.
Comprising of the EcoWaste Coalition, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Green Convergence, Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), KULAY, Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), and green advocates from local communities, protesters paraded a “mock incinerator monster” surrounded by youth activists dressed as zombies, to symbolically depict the horror of incineration for drastically devastating clean air, climate, public health, as well as jobs and livelihoods.
Some 200 protesters joined the march ahead of the Earth Day celebration.
“In response to renewed attempts by some pro-incineration congressmen to water down the Clean Air Act, we call on President Benigno Aquino to defend the law from legislative attacks and keep the incineration ban intact,” said Aileen Lucero, National Coordinator of the waste and pollution watchdog EcoWaste Coaltion. “Aquino should make it his legacy to defend the Clean Air Act from attempts to lift the ban on the burn and to uphold it through genuine implementation.”
Rep. Edgar Erice has proposed a bill amending Section 20 of the Clean Air Act or Republic Act 8749 to allow incineration of wastes.
“We are aghast that, despite oppositions from the civil society and in the face of hard evidence against the supposed benefits of incineration – thermal treatment technology – pro-incinerators lawmakers in the House of Representatives were too excited to amend RA 8749 that they appeared willing to proceed with it even behind our backs,” said Paeng Lopez of GAIA.
Merci Ferrer, HCWH-Asia Director, underscored the health impacts of incinerating medical wastes, particularly to host communities. “Burning of biomedical wastes produces dioxins and furans which when released to the environment will cause enormous public health impacts such as impairment of the immune, nervous, endocrine and reproductive systems,” she said. (Mindanao Examiner)
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