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DOE eyes system for proper disposal of light bulbs with mercury |
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Written by By Amy R. Remo Philippine Daily Inquirer
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Friday, 03 September 2010 08:11 |
First Posted 14:13:00 09/01/2010
http://business.inquirer.net/money/breakingnews/view/20100901-289949/DOE-eyes-system-for-proper-disposal-of-light-bulbs-with-mercury
MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Energy is planning to issue
rules and regulations as well as a system to ensure the proper
disposal of compact fluorescent lamps that contain the hazardous
chemical mercury.
“True, we have switched from inefficient incandescent bulbs to
efficient lighting systems such CFLs. But it comes with a
price—mercury is an integral component of CFLs. And mercury, if not
properly disposed of, poses health hazards to humankind and the
environment,” said Energy Undersecretary Loreta Ayson.
The extended producer responsibility (EPR), also known as “producer
take back,” is a system in which producers take responsibility,
physical and/or financial, for the environmental and social impacts of
their products throughout their life cycle.
“Specifically, this will mean that producers of fluorescent lamps will
be in charge of the collection, processing, and reclamation of their
products when they are no longer useful or discarded,” added Thony
Dizon of the EcoWaste Coalition, in a statement.
“At present, there is no safe system for managing end-of-life lamps,
which are often thrown into regular bins and sent to disposal sites
where these are dumped, burned, or recycled in unsafe conditions,”
Dizon explained.
Information from the Philippine Efficient Lighting Market
Transformation Project (PELMATP) has shown that 88 percent of
households and 77 percent of commercial establishments dispose of
their old lamps just like they do with ordinary domestic waste.
The DoE has commissioned the International Institute for Energy
Conservation and Innogy Solutions Inc. to conduct the feasibility and
policy studies on EPR for mercury-containing lamp waste.
This government-led initiative has earned the support of waste and
pollution non-government organizations, namely EcoWaste Coalition and
the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).
Aside from the DoE, the Departments of Environment and Natural
Resources, Science and Technology, and of Trade and Industry, as well
as importers and distributors of energy-efficient lightings, hazardous
waste treaters and environmental NGOs took part in a meeting over the
feasibility of developing the EPR.
“We envisioned a robust EPR that will impose lower levels of mercury
in CFLs imported into the country, uphold consumer right to full
product and safety information, internalize the environmental
costs, and operate an environmentally-sound system for managing spent
lamps, including a collection scheme that is easy for the public to
access,” added Manny Calonzo, co-coordinator of GAIA.
Under the laws (Republic Acts 6969 and 9003), lamp waste is considered
hazardous and should not be mixed with recyclable and compostable
discards. These laws further require the proper management and
disposal of lamp waste through appropriate hazardous waste treatment
facilities. |
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Last Updated on Friday, 03 September 2010 08:12 |
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Govt initiative on disposing mercury lamps takes shape |
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Written by http://www.gmanews.tv/story/199944/govt-initiative-on-disposing-mercury-lamps-takes-shape
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Friday, 03 September 2010 06:43 |
09/01/2010 | 02:46 PM
The departments of Energy and Environment and Natural Resources on
Wednesday said that talks are underway on how to tackle an "extended
producer responsibility" program for mercury lamps, including a policy
study on establishing a plan of action for it.
EPR, or "producer take back," is a system in which producers take
physical and financial responsibility for the social and environmental
impact of a product.
“True, we have switched from inefficient incandescent bulbs to
efficient lighting systems such as compact fluorescent lamps. But it
comes with a price – mercury is an integral component of CFLs. And
mercury, if not properly disposed of, poses health hazards to
humankind and the environment," Energy Undersecretary Loreta Ayson
said.
To establish an EPR in the Philippines, the Energy Department has
commissioned Innogy Solutions Inc. and International Institute for
Energy Conservation to do feasibility and policy studies on a program
for mercury-based lamps.
Previous studies showed that mercury lamps must be disposed of in a
hazardous-waste landfill or government-approved recovery facility. The
disposal of mercury lamps and light bulbs in open dumps is prohibited,
the department said.
Small quantity waste generators may dispose lamp wastes in a municipal
landfill for hazardous waste registered with the Energy Management
Bureau and the National Solid Waste Management Commission.
The Philippines needs a pilot program on EPR with a central agent
buying new bulbs from suppliers, collecting spent bulbs, and handling
waste disposal and treatment services for mercury lamps.
A strong EPR policy
The EcoWaste Coalition and the Global Alliance for Incinerator
Alternative said that a strong EPR policy initiative will curb the
practice of throwing busted CFLs in waste bins and regular dumps, a
practice that negatively affects people and the environment.
“Specifically, this will mean that producers of fluorescent lamps will
be in charge of the collection, processing, and reclamation of their
products when [these] are disposed or no longer useful," Thony Dizon,
representing EcoWaste Coalition’s Project PROTECT, said.
Data from last year's energy audit seminar, Philippine Efficient
Lighting Market Transformation Project, showed that 88 percent of
households and 77 percent of commercial establishments treat their
mercury-based and other lamps as domestic waste.
EcoWaste Coalition has raised the problem with former Energy Secretary
Angelo Reyes and former Environment Secretary Joselito Atienza, saying
the disposal of busted lamps exposes informal recyclers in dumpsites
and junk shops and their immediate communities to mercury – a highly
toxic substance.
“We envisioned a robust EPR that will impose lower levels of mercury
in CFLs imported into the country, uphold consumer rights to full
product and safety information, internalize the environmental costs,
and operate an environmentally sound system for managing spent lamps,
including a collection scheme that is easy for the public to access,"
co-coordinator of Global Alliance Manny Calonzo said.
Environment advocates also urged the Energy Department to ensure
meaningful stakeholders’ participation in establishing a “mercury
waste management facility," stressing the importance of public
consultations in the process.
Republic Acts 6969 and 9003 defined lamp waste as hazardous, requiring
proper disposal and waste management in the right treatment
facilities. —VS, GMANews.TV |
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Last Updated on Friday, 03 September 2010 06:45 |
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Written by by Ma. Sonia G. Astudillo
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Friday, 03 September 2010 08:00 |
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 20:22
http://www.journal.com.ph/index.php/opinion/17375-the-silent-killer.html
MERCURY, although generally thought of as the gold standard for
measuring devices, is actually harmful to people’s health and the
environment.
Mercury causes tremors, emotional changes, insomnia, neuromuscular
changes, headaches, disturbance in sensations, changes in nerve
response and performance deficits on cognitive function tests. At
higher exposure, mercury damages the lungs and kidneys as well as the
nervous, digestive, respiratory and immune systems.
It has been called many names: from “the silent killer” to “the enemy
on your bedside.”
For more than five years now, the environmental-health group Health
Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia (HCWH-SEA) has been pushing for the
phase-out of mercury-containing devices in health care.
Mercury is found in thermometers, blood pressure devices, laboratory
chemicals, cleaners, and building products such as thermostats,
pressure gauges and switches. In households, there are
mercury-containing fluorescent lamps, merthiolate, contact lens
solutions and mercury-containing batteries.
Mercury is the silvery substance that people were once so fond of
playing especially in Chemistry classes. But the sad and dangerous
fact about mercury is it is lethal. One gram of mercury -- this is the
amount in one thermometer -- can contaminate 80,940 square meters of
lake or 192 professional basketball courts. And the effect is not
contained in one area, it travels from continents to continents.
Mercury’s effect is also “digital”, meaning it travels so fast. With
one click or one breakage, it is out there in the open, for everyone
to linger on and breathe.
In 2008, the Department of Health (DoH) issued Administrative Order
(AO) 21 mandating the gradual phase-out of mercury-containing devices
in health care by September 2010. The AO prioritizes phase-out of
mercury-containing thermometers and sphygmomanometers which have the
most amount of elemental mercury. The Philippines is the 1st
Southeast Asian country and the 1st developing country to have a
national policy like AO 21.
The DoH directive mandated all health care facilities to go clean
(malinis) and stink-free (mabango).
AO 21 is a jump-start. If we can rid our hospitals of all
mercury-containing devices, then we are a step towards malinis at
mabango.
The other half of cleaning hospitals and making them malinis at
mabango and mercury-free is mercury importation ban. Such a ban has
been carried out in the U.S., European Union and Argentina. It can be
done in the Philippines.
In the private sector, several distributors of mercury-containing
devices are now moving to safer alternatives and even the big retail
stores like Watsons Personal Care are now mercury-free. Alternatives
to mercury-containing devices in health care are very much available
and have been proven accurate.
Even celebrities have made their stance clear on mercury phase-out.
The roster of celebrities supporting the campaign now includes actor
Albert Martinez, VJ Judah Paolo, Survivor Philippines Shaun Rodriguez
and DJ Papa Dudut.
At the Senate, Sen. Edgardo J. Angara pledged to re-file the Mercury
Reduction Act. It proposes a three-pronged plan: switch of
mercury-using products and processes to non-mercury alternatives,
control of mercury release and mercury waste management. The Act is
far more encompassing as it covers mercury used in toys, cosmetics and
apparel, health care, schools and universities, and other sources.
The health care sector may very well serve as a model for a massive
mercury phase-out and the Philippine case may be a good example to
showcase to the world. |
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Last Updated on Friday, 03 September 2010 08:01 |
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Written by By Alex Lacson
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Friday, 03 September 2010 05:45 |
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To all the people of HK and China, especially the relatives of the victims, my family and I deeply mourn with the loss of your loved ones. Every life is precious. My family and I humbly ask for your understanding and forgiveness.
After the August 23 hostage drama, there is just too much negativity about and against the Filipino.
“It is difficult to be a Filipino these days”, says a friend who works in Hongkong. “Nakakahiya tayo”, “Only in the Philippines” were some of the comments lawyer Trixie Cruz-Angeles received in her Facebook. There is this email supposedly written by a Dutch married to a Filipina, with 2 kids, making a litany of the supposed stupidity or idiocy of Filipinos in general. There was also this statement by Fermi Wong, founder of Unison HongKong, where she said – “Filipino maids have a very low status in our city”. Then there is this article from a certain Daniel Wagner of Huffington Post, wherein he said he sees nothing good in our country’s future.
Clearly, the hostage crisis has spawned another crisis – a crisis of faith in the Filipino, one that exists in the minds of a significant number of Filipinos and some quarters in the world.
It is important for us Filipinos to take stock of ourselves as a people – of who we truly are as a people. It is important that we remind ourselves who the Filipino really is, before our young children believe all this negativity that they hear and read about the Filipino.
We have to protect and defend the Filipino in each one of us.
The August 23 hostage fiasco is now part of us as Filipinos, it being part now of our country’s and world’s history. But that is not all that there is to the Filipino. Yes, we accept it as a failure on our part, a disappointment to HongKong, China and to the whole world.
But there is so much more about the Filipino.
In 1945, at the end of World War II, Hitler and his Nazi had killed more than 6 million Jews in Europe. But in 1939, when the Jews and their families were fleeing Europe at a time when several countries refused to open their doors to them, our Philippines did the highly risky and the unlikely –thru President Manuel L Quezon, we opened our country’s doors and our nation’s heart to the fleeing and persecuted Jews. Eventually, some 1,200 Jews and their families made it to Manila. Last 21 June 2010, or 70 years later, the first ever monument honoring Quezon and the Filipino nation for this “open door policy” was inaugurated on Israeli soil, at the 65-hectare Holocaust Memorial Park in Rishon LeZion, Israel.
The Filipino heart is one of history’s biggest, one of the world’s rare jewels, and one of humanity’s greatest treasures.
In 2007, Baldomero M. Olivera, a Filipino, was chosen and awarded as the Scientist for the Year 2007 by Harvard University Foundation, for his work in neurotoxins which is produced by venomous cone snails commonly found in the tropical waters of Philippines. Olivera is a distinguished professor of biology at University of Utah, USA. The Scientist for the Year 2007 award was given to him in recognition to his outstanding contribution to science, particularly to molecular biology and groundbreaking work with conotoxins. The research conducted by Olivera’s group became the basis for the production of commercial drug called Prialt (generic name – Ziconotide), which is considered more effective than morphine and does not result in addiction.
The Filipino mind is one of the world’s best, one of humanity’s great assets.
The Filipino is capable of greatness, of making great sacrifices for the greater good of the least of our people. Josette Biyo is an example of this. Biyo has master's and doctoral degrees from one of the top universities in the Philippines – the De La Salle University (Taft, Manila) – where she used to teach rich college students and was paid well for it. But Dr Biyo left all that and all the glamour of Manila, and chose to teach in a far-away public school in a rural area in the province, receiving the salary of less than US$ 300 a month. When asked why she did that, she replied “but who will teach our children?” In recognition of the rarity of her kind, the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States honoured Dr Biyo a very rare honor – by naming a small and new-discovered planet in our galaxy as “Biyo”.
The Filipino is one of humanity’s best examples on the greatness of human spirit!
Efren Penaflorida was born to a father who worked as a tricycle driver and a mother who worked as laundrywoman. Through sheer determination and the help of other people, Penaflorida finished college. In 1997, Penaflorida and his friends formed a group that made pushcarts (kariton) and loaded them with books, pens, crayons, blackboard, clothes, jugs of water, and a Philippine flag. Then he and his group would go to the public cemetery, market and garbage dump sites in Cavite City – to teach street children with reading, math, basic literacy skills and values, to save them from illegal drugs and prevent them from joining gangs. Penaflorida and his group have been doing this for more than a decade. Last year, Penaflorida was chosen and awarded as CNN Hero for 2009.
Efren Penaflorida is one of the great human beings alive today. And he is a Filipino!
Nestor Suplico is yet another example of the Filipino’s nobility of spirit. Suplico was a taxi driver In New York. On 17 July 2004, Suplico drove 43 miles from New York City to Connecticut, USA to return the US$80,000 worth of jewelry (rare black pearls) to his passenger who forgot it at the back seat of his taxi. When his passenger offered to give him a reward, Suplico even refused the reward. He just asked to be reimbursed for his taxi fuel for his travel to Connecticut. At the time, Suplico was just earning $80 a day as a taxi driver. What do you call that? That’s honesty in its purest sense. That is decency most sublime. And it occurred in New York, the Big Apple City, where all kinds of snakes and sinners abound, and a place where – according to American novelist Sydney Sheldon – angels no longer descend. No wonder all New York newspapers called him “New York’s Most Honest Taxi Driver”. The New York City Government also held a ceremony to officially acknowledge his noble deed. The Philippine Senate passed a Resolution for giving honors to the Filipino people and our country.
In Singapore, Filipina Marites Perez-Galam, 33, a mother of four, found a wallet in a public toilet near the restaurant where she works as the head waitress found a wallet containing 16,000 Singaporean dollars (US $11,000). Maritess immediately handed the wallet to the restaurant manager of Imperial Herbal restaurant where she worked located in Vivo City Mall. The manager in turn reported the lost money to the mall’s management. It took the Indonesian woman less than two hours to claim her lost wallet intended for her son’s ear surgery that she and her husband saved for the medical treatment. Maritess refused the reward offered by the grateful owner and said it was the right thing to do.
The Filipina, in features and physical beauty, is one of the world’s most beautiful creatures! Look at this list – Gemma Cruz became the first Filipina to win Miss International in 1964; Gloria Diaz won as Miss Universe in 1969; Aurora Pijuan won Miss International in 1970; Margie Moran won Miss Universe in 1973; Evangeline Pascual was 1st runner up in Miss World 1974; Melanie Marquez was Miss International in 1979; Ruffa Gutierrez was 2nd runner up in Miss World 1993; Charlene Gonzalez was Miss Universe finalist in 1994; Mirriam Quiambao was Miss Universe 1st runner up in 1999; and last week, Venus Raj was 4th runner up in Miss Universe pageant.
I can cite more great Filipinos like Ramon Magsaysay, Ninoy Aquino, Leah Salonga, Manny Pacquaio, Paeng Nepomuceno, Tony Meloto, Joey Velasco, Juan Luna and Jose Rizal. For truly, there are many more great Filipinos who define who we are as a people and as a nation – each one of them is part of each one of us, for they are Filipinos like us, for they are part of our history as a people.
What we see and hear of the Filipino today is not all that there is about the Filipino. I believe that the Filipino is higher and greater than all these that we see and hear about the Filipino. God has a beautiful story for us as a people. And the story that we see today is but a fleeting portion of that beautiful story that is yet to fully unfold before the eyes of our world.
So let’s rise as one people. Let’s pick up the pieces. Let’s ask for understanding and forgiveness for our failure. Let us also ask for space and time to correct our mistakes, so we can improve our system.
To all of you my fellow Filipinos, let’s keep on building the Filipino great and respectable in the eyes of our world – one story, two stories, three stories at a time – by your story, by my story, by your child’s story, by your story of excellence at work, by another Filipino’s honesty in dealing with others, by another Pinoy’s example of extreme sacrifice, by the faith in God we Filipinos are known for.
Every Filipino, wherever he or she maybe in the world today, is part of the solution. Each one of us is part of the answer. Every one of us is part of the hope we seek for our country. The Filipino will not become a world-class citizen unless we are able to build a world-class homeland in our Philippines.
We are a beautiful people. Let no one in the world take that beauty away from you. Let no one in the world take away that beauty away from any of your children! We just have to learn – very soon – to build a beautiful country for ourselves, with an honest and competent government in our midst.
Mga kababayan, after reading this, I ask you to do two things.
First, defend and protect the Filipino whenever you can, especially among your children. Fight all this negativity about the Filipino that is circulating in many parts of the world. Let us not allow this single incident define who the Filipino is, and who we are as a people. And second, demand for good leadership and good government from our leaders. Question both their actions and inaction; expose the follies of their policies and decisions. The only way we can perfect our system is by engaging it. The only way we can solve our problem, is by facing it, head on.
We are all builders of the beauty and greatness of the Filipino. We are the architects of our nation’s success.
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Last Updated on Friday, 03 September 2010 05:48 |
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