The latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the country generated 269,552 tons of hazardous waste like oil and toxic chemicals last year, an increase of 13 percent year on year.
Though one of the lowest volumes recorded based on data dating back to 2015, hazardous waste is still piling up faster than the government could build disposal facilities, even if the number of material recovery facilities nationwide in 2024 was at 12,855, which is an 8.7 percent increase from the previous year’s 11,823.
Among the types of hazardous waste, oil was the largest at 89,752 tons, or 33.3 percent of the total generated hazardous trash in the country. It was followed by miscellaneous waste at 51,765 tons, and then waste with inorganic chemicals at 39,438 tons.
“The increasing volume of overall waste – whether hazardous or not – is the product of a linear take-make-waste system and businesses’ continued dependence on single-use products and use of hazardous chemicals in products and services,” said Marian Ledesma, Greenpeace Philippines campaigner.
She said there are ways to reduce the volume of waste, such as phasing out single use plastics and other common disposable products, banning commercial use of harmful chemical groups in products, regulating hazardous chemicals, and strictly enforcing segregation at source.
“The latter is especially crucial to reduce organic waste from going to landfills and to avoid hazardous and organic waste from contaminating other types of waste. Phaseouts or bans of single use products and packaging, on the other hand, can prevent waste generation altogether,” she added.
Our inability to properly dispose of waste, whether hazardous or not, exposes our people and the environment to unnecessary risks that would be thoroughly preventable if we only took waste management seriously.
As our government officials try to catch up with the disposal facility shortfall, we should also cooperate to work towards a circular economy instead of the current and extremely wasteful linear one that we don’t seem keen on abandoning. Changing our culture, attitudes, and lifestyles to avoid waste altogether will help our over stressed waste management systems cope, as will adopting better waste management practices, that includes mindful segregation at the source and recycling and reuse.
It is going to take deliberate effort on our part, but if we don’t want the next generation of Filipinos to be buried in our own waste, that is something we have to start doing now.*
