There are poisons in your household wastes

MARIO Rodriguez throws out used light bulbs along   with the household trash.

“If I can’t throw it in the garbage can then I just keep it in a safe place so that children can’t play with it,” said Rodriguez, a father of three in barangay Mambaling, Cebu City.

He said he sometimes throws broken compact flourescent lamps (CFLs) in a corner of the backyard where he also keeps  other scraps.

But Kaira Alburo, executive director of  the research group A2D project, warned that breaking CFL bulbs would release its mercury content in the environment.

Thermometers also have high mercury content inside, so children shouldn’t  play with them.

Exposure to toxic chemicals found in household  wastes could cause skin or respiratory irritation, watery eyes and chemical burns.

Continuous exposure can lead to  chronic harmful health effects and the risk of cancer.

Alburo said the  Cebu City government should undertake an awareness campaign about these dangers and  adopt programs to minimize these kinds of wastes, and create a city management board for these wastes.

“Household hazardous wastes are not addressed by the city’s segregation program,” she said.

Alburo’s group spoke before the City Council last Wednesday. They were tapped by Councilor Nida Cabrera, head of the environment committee, to help the  city’s campaign against hazardous wastes.

Survey

In September 2011, Alburo said A2D met and started training barangay environmental officers from 57 of Cebu City’s s 80 barangays to start a household survey to  determine the Cebuanos’ awareness of the problem.

The survey of 1,636 respondents showed that bleach, muriatic acid and insecticide are  the top chemical-rich items found in the  household.

Alburo said the survey results were alarming especially that 42.6 percent of the respondents were unaware of the hazardous contents of these items or how to properly  dispose of them.

CFLs, for example, were either broken or mixed with other household  trash. So were mrcury-rich thermometers while used car batteries were sold to junk shops.

Quoting a study by the National Poison Management and Control Center of the University of the Philippines, Alburo said that most cases of  poisoning cases happen at home.

She cited a 2005 incident in San Jose Elementary School in Mabini, Batangas  province where 29 students died after they  ate sweets accidentally mixed with carbamate insecticide.

Dr. Patrick Lim of A2D said that the barangays in the survey produced at least 332 grams of mercury each year.

Lim said that mercury and other hazardous wastes were found in  350 tons of garbage collected daily by the city.

To prevent accidental poisoning, products should be properly labled, she said.

The city should also properly manage its hazardous wastes by minimizing them at the barangay level through source reduction, recycling and treatment.

Strict garbage segregation   is also needed.

She said that the city should also campaign for product orientation to encourage disclosure of chemical contents in products.

Councilor Cabrera said the city would buy a garbage truck this year for the specific use of collecting hazardous wastes.

She said a company at the Mactan Export processing zone also offered to help the city manage its hazardous wastes.