Plastic waste to brick bottles

HAPPY WEEKEND
Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- Plastic waste can be put to good use by making bottle bricks out of these. Plastic waste includes cellophane, Styrofoam, candy wrappers, biscuit wrappers, pampers, toothbrush, and anything plastic. And before you throw or burn these and pollute the environment, here’s a better way to make waste material into constructive use.

While showing a 1.5 ml coke bottle filled with plastic waste, Joel Fagsao, executive assistant to the office of the municipal mayor of Bontoc enjoined municipality representatives of the Provincial Solid Waste Management Council in a recent meeting, to put plastic waste to good use by making brick bottles compacted with waste plastic into 1.5 ml coke or sprite plastic bottles.

Fagsao enjoined the public to submit bottled plastic waste at Xijen office here in Bontoc. The brick bottles form part of the accumulated material from other submitted ones from different sources to serve as material in the making of a community library at Guinaang, Bontoc.

The community library made with brick bottles is a project of the Local Government Unit of Bontoc in support of the same on-going project of Canadian tourist Russel Mayer for said community library.

It shall also be recalled that Siegrid Bangyay- Rogers, officer of the Sagada Solid Waste Association (SSWAI) announced in a previous interview the same project being done by Russel in cooperation with the Department of Education.

St. Mary’s School students here in Sagada are also collecting plastic to be made into brick bottles for their respective projects.

Now here is something constructive where garbage is made into something good rather than becoming a problem in the community.

As noted, the open dump site along the Chico river banks in Upper Calutit in the capital town of Bontoc is the subject of a case of writ of kalikasan filed against the LGU of Bontoc and Mountain Province having violated RA 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2001 providing prohibition to open dump sites.

Relatedly, the open dump site of the Sagada LGU located along Calvary Hill above the public cemetery has been ordered closed by March 2013 by the vestry of the Church of St Mary the Virgin for being unsanitary and a threat to environmental health.

On the contrary, garbage is something manageable as noted in a meeting of the PSWMC last Thursday. Non biodegradable waste especially plastic can be made into brick bottles, biodegradable waste for pig’s food or composting material, and bottles to be sold to junk shop dealers.

As noted, bio degradable waste is being composted into fertilizer by the Bontoc market vendors Association and also by the St Theodore’s Hospital here in Sagada.An indigenous practise needing more practise.

This leaves rubber and leather garbage as used shoes and slippers which are eye sores inside the house when not thrown out or made into something useful. Perhaps this is where the much needed pulverizing equipment comes in. Otherwise, used rubber and leather can be recycled into something else for good.