3 Ways to Reduce Waste Production in the Metro

Cebu is heralded as the Queen City of the South, and fair enough, it lives up to its name: bustling enterprises, chatty call centers, grand malls, prestigious schools, global tourist attractions, savory restaurants, loudmouth streets – it sounds like the city life dream, except it’s also a metropolis filled with garbage.

Evidently, there is a waste problem in the local arena. We are living with a sachet economy and littering is the norm. There is too many trash, and too little people who care.

There are local eco-warriors and organizations that do all they can to curb waste production, but when the majority of the people just don’t seem to care, it is close to impossible to clean a metropolitan wasteland. Cleaning up and caring is a collective effort, after all.

Do you want to know what you can do to help? Here is a list of easy tips and tricks we can all practice to reduce our city’s waste:

Switch to sustainable products
Single-use plastic is never good. For starters, it is manufactured from fossil fuels and can last over a hundred years. Single-use plastic is also a common pollutant to our beautiful oceans and have killed, and will continue to kill, marine creatures who can get trapped in the plastic or accidentally consume it as food.

One may ask, “Okay… but what’s in it for me?” Aside from it creating an unsafe and dirty environment, single-use plastic can easily enter our food chain, which means you may one day consume it yourself. This can result to hormone disruption, cancer, or worse.

This is why we should refuse, refuse, refuse, and choose reusable and sustainable products.

There are several local shops that offer affordable, zero-waste products such as Happy Planet PH which sells bamboo straws and toothbrushes, biodegradable cleaning brushes, and shampoo and conditioner bars.

There is also Hin.Lu Cebu which sells native backpacks, toothbrush casings, coconut spoons and forks, and metal straws.

Start building ecobricks
In a community that has grown accustomed to using one-use plastic, sometimes you just can’t help but use plastic. Luckily, ecobricking is a viable solution.

In a nutshell, ecobricks are made when used plastics are saved, cleaned, and packed tight into bottles. This can then be reused as building blocks for chairs, tables, shelves, pots, home decor, among all others.

Anyone can start an ecobrick project, in fact it is highly recommended. However, if you simply do not have the time and equipment to do so, you can donate your ecobrick instead.

Tutoring Club Cebu and Engineering for Kids are currently accepting ecobricks that can be dropped off on the second floor of Banilad Town Center. If you intend on donating, contact them first for inquiries and instructions.

Promote eco-consciousness
Being eco-conscious is a vital factor to ridding our streets of garbage strips, however it is not as practiced as one may think.

Promoting eco-consciousness can be done in a variety of methods. From attending local events such as clean-up activities and recycling workshops, to doing something as simple as posting your bamboo straw and ecobricks in social media.

One can also start supporting good and sustainable enterprises such as pizza place Handuraw Mango, bookworms’ haven Books and Brews Café, and burger stop Mister Griddle for switching to metal straws instead of plastic.

These may be small acts, but they effectively call for eco-conscious action.

With collective efforts, responsible consumerism, and eco-consciousness, we as residents of Cebu, can truly rise up against our garbage problems in the long run.