Earth is a planet which is home to different kinds of animals and plants that give human the existence to live and survive in many ways. Man is the only component who can save and take good care of these living creatures needed for the cycle of life. Instead of taking good care of our planet, man’s existence results to the havoc of the ecosystem from daily activities that damage the environment such as cutting down of trees, throwing garbage in the river etc.. Thus only man can stop the continuous destruction of the environment. The balance of life can be only maintained and restored by the cooperation of every human in different campaigns and organization in saving the environment.
The teacher plays a pivotal role in environmental education and institutional greening. It does not only provide information and develop skills, but more importantly, build values, attitudes, life styles, and behavior among students. Teachers must assume tasks and responsibilities appropriate to this objective. If every member of the school will cooperate they can achieve the wonders of 3R’s and truly make a difference to the Earth’s health. The Department of Education has a lot of programs that have been implemented in schools like Zero Waste Management, War on Waste etc., but then there are still problems encountered which can be observed when you try to look at the trash can/box for biodegradable and non-biodegradable. Still they are not properly segregated specially when there are events in school, you can still see a lot of garbage in the ground which implies that there is really an existing problem.
A Solid Waste Management Model (SWMM) can be a great solution to address the problems encountered by every individual in the school. It will undergo such process to be approved by the expert authorities from the agencies of government with prior knowledge about the SWMM. This can be very helpful to schools and can vastly reduce amounts of garbage ending up in landfill.
Masbate is a province known for promoting environmental programs in saving nature biodiversity and very active in implementing environmental programs. One of its concerns is the Waste Management. The city approved the policy for No to Plastic Bags on November 4, 2011 wherein the vendors are not allowed to use plastic bags for their packaging. In this case the customer/buyer are obliged to bring their own plastics/sacks or anything that can be used in holding goods. Most of the vendors are using newspapers in packaging dry goods.
In schools the teachers are encouraged to have their own trash box/can inside the classroom for different kinds of solid waste. There are steel trash box scattered in the city wherein the people will throw their garbage. It is collected everyday but still it is not enough to eradicate the growing garbage for its growing population. It is believed that having a Material Recovery Facility or MRF would be the best solution for this problem since all the garbage collected are all in the dump sites. Schools can have its own MRF to lessen the garbage collected to strengthen and widen the awareness of the people in finding better ways to protect our environment.
Published and Owned by: Jhonmark D. Barruga
