Some grave reminders for All Saints' Day

You’d be com-mitting a grave mistake if you didn’t heed this dead serious warning from concerned souls, what with All Saints’ Day just around the proverbial corner. If you truly want to honor the dead — and show respect for our dearly departed — you should keep our cemeteries and surrounding communities trash-free, say our pollution watchdogs.

This timely appeal was aired by the EcoWaste Coalition, an environmental network of more than 100 groups, with the nationwide celebrations of All Saints’/All Souls’ Days expected to draw the usual hordes of people to the cemeteries and columbaries.

Roy Alvarez, president of the EcoWaste Coalition, laments, “The beautiful tradition of remembering the dead has become a huge garbage challenge with the supposedly hallowed burial sites instantly turnined into dumpsites by insensitive visitors.”

He pleads, “Let us respect the dead and not desecrate the cemeteries with trash.The fragile state of the earth’s climate should rouse us into simplifying our rituals and make do with less candles, flowers, meals, and definitely less plastic disposables.”

Let us pray for our dead and let us have an eco-friendly and waste-free Undas, to curb the impact of climate change, one of the pressing realities of modern living. “To increase the recovery and recycling of resources, and lessen the amount of trash going into the dumpsites,” Alvarez points out.

Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez Jr. says amen to that. “Please cut back on garbage, noise and air pollution for a healthier environment for all,” exhorts the good bishop who heads the Public Affairs Committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

For a truly meaningful Undas celebration that cares for the dead and the environment, here are some very down-to-earth tips from Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez Jr., Franciscan priest Fr. Pete Montallana, ex-Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., and environmental leaders from Buklod Tao, Citizens Concerned with Advocating Philippine Environmental Sustainability, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Mother Earth Foundation, Sagip Sierra Madre Environmental Society, and the EcoWaste Coalition Secretariat.

For cemetery administrators

• Carry out a recycling program within their sites, including the possibility of engaging the service of waste pickers in adjacent neighborhoods.

• Put up recycling stations (at the minimum two separate bins for biodegradable and non-biodegradable discards), especially in high traffic areas (entrances, exits, toilets, vendor areas etc.).

• Hang cloth banners in strategic spots to announce that the cemetery is a waste-free zone and that everyone is enjoined not to litter, dump or set discards, including grass clippings, ablaze.

• Integrate the ecological management of discards in catering and vendor rules and regulations, including essential waste prevention and reduction requisites.

• Orient and require other potential waste generators such as the accredited volunteer support groups to abide by the cemetery waste policy.

• Make use of the public address system to politely inform and persuade all to support the cemetery’s effort to avoid and cut trash.

For ambulant merchants, fastfood stalls, and other business shops

• Refrain from giving away plastic disposables such as bags, straws, cups, and other single-use plastic items. Hand them out only upon request.

• Serve food and beverage in reusable glasses and mugs, plates, and cutlery.

• Courteously show your customers where to put their discards for recycling or disposal.

• Bring your own  trash bags or bins, keep them from overflowing, and keep your areas clean at all times.

• Make a final sweep of your assigned spaces, ensuring that all trash has been properly removed.

For the general public

• Clean the tombs of your departed ones without causing pollution — for example, from the burning of grass and plant cuttings and garbage piles.

• Walk, bike, carpool or take the public transportation to the cemeteries.

• Select clean-burning candles that do not yield black fumes or ash.

• Lit a reasonable number only to minimize heat and pollution. Do not let candles’ plastic receptacles or holders to burn.

• Offer local fresh flowers, not plastic ones, or consider bringing potted plants and flowers instead. Simple, inexpensive flowers will do. Avoid wrapping floral or plant offerings in plastic, which will sooner or later end up as trash.

• Don’t play loud music, tone down noise in the cemetery, and help make the place conducive to prayers and to family bonding, too.

• Bring your own water jug to avoid purchasing bottled water. Please watch The Story of Bottled Water to find out why: http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/

• Go for waste-free meals. Say yes to reusable carriers, containers, and utensils such as lunchboxes and thermos, cloth napkins and silverwares. Say no to throw-away bags, wraps, foil or Styrofoam, paper napkins, and forks and spoons. Also, refrain from patronizing junk food and go for simple yet nutritious home-prepared baon.

• Buy less or only as much as you know you will consume in terms of food and beverage. Bring bayong or other reusable bags to carry your stuff and purchases, and refuse plastic bags and wrappers from vendors.

• Cut your waste size by not creating trash in the first place such as by purchasing products with the least amount of packaging and avoiding single-use plastic disposables.

• Take full responsibility for your discards.  Put them  into the recycling bins and never litter. Better still, bring your own discards bags and bring them home for sorting, reusing, recycling or composting. Remember to leave the resting places of your loved ones litter-free.

The good news is Buklod Tao, a member group of the EcoWaste Coalition, has kindly offered to receive used Undas flowers and leaves for shredding in their facility. They will also accept discarded fruit juice doy packs that community members can recycle into bags and other functional items. Buklod Tao is located at 7 Dama de Noche, Barangay Banaba, San Mateo, Rizal. Now, we know where to take our wastes the mourning after.

And may we take our rest (from trash) in peace now and forever.

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