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Greenpeace Press Release

MANILA, Philippines, 14 November 2001-- The environmental group Greenpeace today warned legislators against repealing the incineration ban in the Clean Air Act, saying that such a move would not only be ecologically regressive but would open the floodgates for the dumping of dangerous and economically debilitating waste management systems in the country.

The environmental group urged legislators not to be stampeded into accepting a bad solution by Metro Manila mayors who have found a convenient scapegoat in the Clean Air Act for their current inabilities to deal with the burgeoning garbage problem in the metropolis.

Incinerators will not make waste magically disappear, but will actually transform it into a deadly pollution menace. Moreover, an incineration-based strategy would subject the citizenry to a multiple whammy of massive debt repayments and costly operational expenses, an inflexible waste disposal system which drains money away from the local economy, and the nightmare of cancer-causing toxic emissions associated with the burning of waste, said Von Hernandez, Campaign Manager for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

Hernandez added that incineration is the most costly method of waste disposal with known and unknown escalating costs which would place substantial and unreasonable burdens on both state and municipal budgets to the point of seriously jeopardizing the public interest. Incinerators typically cost 5 to 10 times more than sanitary landfilling, but would also not eliminate the need for the latter because the hazardous ash generated by the burning process would still require secure containment and disposal.

Incineration is the most costly of all waste management options. Incinerators , especially the so-called state-of-the-art units are expensive to build and operate with disposal tipping fees ranging from $80 to $ 90 USD per ton of waste discarded at such facilities. In New Jersey in the United States, one of the first states to embrace municipal waste incineration, counties that have built incinerators have accumulated $1.35 billion USD in debt.

The Philippines should not repeat the costly mistakes of countries who went the incineration route . It just doesn t make sense for our officials to drain our economy of much needed financial resources to fill the pockets of multinational waste management companies --- especially to pay for dirty projects which will end up poisoning our people and our environment, Hernandez said .

The group also pointed out that because incinerators need waste to continue operating, they undermine progress towards recycling and waste minimization. Investments in incinerators are investments in continued resource plundering, waste production, and pollution. It simply does not make sense to burn paper, organics, metal and other resources which could be conserved for future use and brought back into the productive economy.

World over, incinerators, even the high-tech, state-of-the-art ones ,are facing increasingly vehement community opposition because of their deadly pollution record.

Incineration proponents argue that this technology is safe citing its widespread use in countries like Japan. But in fact, incineration has been identified as the main source of cancer-causing dioxins, furans and other toxic heavy metals in many places including the United States, Japan and European countries.

Japan operates the most number of waste incinerators than any other country in the world today. The country, however, also owns the dubious distinction of having the highest levels of dioxin emissions in the environment, a major consequence of its mindless waste burning policy. The ultra-toxic dioxin is a known carcinogen and has been linked to various birth defects and a host of other health problems. (1) According to independent studies, communities living around and downwind of incinerators in Japan have been documented to have higher rates of cancer, birth defects and infant mortality compared to incineration free areas.

The notoriously toxic dioxins and furans are also on the list of chemicals now being targeted for elimination by the recently adopted Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), thus rendering incineration as an untenable long-term option for countries which have signed the treaty like the Philippines .

Greenpeace estimates that if Metro Manila implements a genuine waste reduction program with greater investments in composting, sorting and recycling facilities, the metropolis could achieve over 50% levels of materials recovery which would in turn translate to huge savings from the avoided costs of disposal. The metropolis spends millions of pesos annually on waste disposal, and the potential savings from composting and recycling could also mean increased resources for other government priorities like health and education.

For the alternative system to succeed, however, government needs capital investment, careful planning and the political commitment to see long term solutions through. The burn and bury options require only a contractor willing to toss money away while overlooking serious health and environmental hazards caused by these facilities, said Francis de la Cruz, Toxics campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia. He added that as long as waste planners focus on short-term solutions, the flawed old waste order will continue to prevail and no real changes will occur.

The environmental group believes that to achieve maximum recovery of resources from municipal solid waste, the government should lead by example by creating both the supply and demand for recycled products, instituting national programs such as product take back and environmental taxation on bad packaging, implementing various education and assistance programs, establishing economic incentives for disposal reduction and development of sorting, recycling and composting projects and facilities.

As long as our officials remain obsessed with back-end non solutions and quick fixes, we will never break free from the old waste order which makes sacrificial victims of poor communities. The move of the Metro Manila mayors is symptomatic of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of some government institutions. The Filipino people deserve better governance than this, added de la Cruz.

For more information, please call: Von Hernandez (mobile 0197-5263050) and Francis de la Cruz (mobile 0919- 5560682), or contact Greenpeace Southeast Asia office at telephone nos. 434-7034; 921-8930