• CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO
The Bacolod Sangguniang Panlungsod is urging the Environment and Natural Resources Office (ENRO), thru the Office of Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez, to support the Observance of National Zero Waste Month on January 2023.
The resolution authored by Councilor Em Ang is urging ENRO to prepare and organize programs and activities intensifying awareness of the importance of waste segregation and other advocacies.
Republic Act No. 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, was passed to promote environmental awareness and action among the citizenry and institutionalize public participation in the development of national and local integrated, comprehensive, and ecological waste management programs, it said.
The resolution said Presidential Proclamation 760 series of 2014 was signed by President Benigno Aquino on May 5, 2014, declaring the month of January as National Zero Waste Management Month.
“Zero waste” is an advocacy that promotes designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, and to conserve and to recover all resources, and not indiscriminately dispose or burn them, it said.
Waste segregation is the first step in the “zero waste” advocacy wherein every household will be able to determine disposed material which can be reused or recycled and can be recovered through other waste management programs, the resolution said.
The City Government of Bacolod partnered with a private entity and launched Trash for Cash program that also supports the above-mentioned advocacy by recovering reusable and recyclable materials by exchanging them into other goods, it said.
The National Zero Waste Month will be an opportunity for the city to intensify its efforts in spreading awareness about its advocacies in waste management through programs and activities to be participated by its citizens, the resolution added.*
