Posted on Monday, November 25, 2002

Menace of toxic wastes growing

By Dave L. Llorito, Research Head and Kristine R. Payuan, Researcher

First of two parts

On March 26, 2002, Holy Tuesday, scavengers in the dumpsite in Sapang Palay, Bulacan, woke up to find a number of sealed drums, apparently left there by trucks the night before. The drums were heaven sent, they thought. Cleaned and spruced up, they could be sold as water containers.

Fifty of the scavengers, mostly children, eagerly opened the drums. Hours later, they were in a hospital, fighting for their lives. 

The drums, it turned out, contained expired powdered materials for dyeing cloth, a toxic and hazardous material. It was so potent that three dogs that strayed into the dump that day immediately died. Investigation showed that the powder came from Universal Textiles and transported by Rota Industries, a hauler of toxic hazardous wastes. Instead of bringing the powder to a nearby treatment facility, the transporter’s wor­kers brought the drums to Sa­pang Palay, banking on the scavengers to get rid of the containers.

Lormelyn Claudio, Environmental Management Bureau chief for Central Luzon, said the Universal Textiles and Rota Industries violated Republic Act No. 6969, the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes of 1990. Universal Textiles has no resources to treat the powdered dye. Rota Industries, meanwhile, failed to register and ensure a safe area for hazardous wastes.

The case of Sapang Palay’s dump being used as disposal site for toxic and hazardous wastes (HW) is not isolated. It is in fact an indicator a growing health threat in communities surrounding Metro Manila.

According to the National Solid Waste Commission, there are 121 open dumps in the National Capital Region and the Southern Tagalog region. Due to the absence of an integrated handling and treatment facilities for HW as well as the loose enforcement of environ­mental laws, the open dumps (many of them illegal but tolerated by local government units) became convenient dumping grounds for noxious substances.

Hazardous wastes are produced by industrial activities like manufacturing, mining, coal combustion, and oil and gas production. They are considered “toxic and hazardous” because of their characteristics like ignitability (may ignite or cause fire), corrosiveness (liquid acids may corrode steel or harm living organisms), reactivity (potential to explode or generate highly poisonous gases), and toxicity (extremely harmful to health through air intake or through drinking of contaminated water). Household wastes like pesticides, cleaners, used oil, paints, and solvents are also considered hazardous.

In a recently concluded report, “The Study on Hazardous Waste Management in the Republic of the Philippines,” the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (Jica) confirms the growing problem.

“[T]here is no treatment facility handling the HWs [hazardous wastes] that need special processes for detoxification such as thermal decomposition, solidification, and so forth. There is no landfill facility available to safely dispose these HWs,” notes Jica in the report. “As a result of this, a large amount of non-recyclable and non-treatable HWs is stored on site by generators, or handled improperly by recyclers and treaters … They pile up on site or may be illegally dumped somewhere.”

The technical staff of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) claims that about 60 percent of the total volume of HW is recycled. Those recycled are HWs that are generally considered “easily recyclable or treatable” such as waste oil, solvents, and inorganic sludge containing valuable metals.

However, they also admitted to The Manila Times that about 40 percent of the HW generated in Metro Manila and the Calabarzon areas are unaccounted for. They too would admit possibility that most of them are dumped in unobtrusive lots in the metropolis. These “unaccounted wastes” are those that require “special processes” for  detoxification and disposal.

Jica estimates about 2.4 million metric tons of HW are being generated each year. About 78 percent is accounted for by the National Capital Region, Southern Tagalog, Central Visayas, and Central Luzon.

In terms of types of HW generated, 22.64 percent (545,631 MT) are alkali wastes, Jica says. Alkali waste includes caustic soda, potash, alkaline cleaners, ammonium hydroxide and lime slurries. The next biggest HW is waste oil making up 20 percent.

Inorganic chemical wastes that include arsenic and its compounds, boron compounds, cadmium and its compounds, chromium compounds, lead compounds, and mercury account for 335,014 MT, or 14 percent.

Acid (177,9456 MT) accounted for 7.35 percent, and plating wastes (174,945 MT), 7.26 percent. Acid wastes include sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, phosphoric acid, hydrofluoric acid, and organic acid. Plating wastes may contain highly concentrated cyanide solutions.

These five types of wastes make up for 71.54 percent of the total volume. The rest is composed of organic wastes, putrescible/organic wastes, textile, immob­ilized wastes, and miscellaneous wastes.

The figure does not include the HW produced by households. Some environmental experts estimate that about 10 percent of the total municipal solid wastes (MSW) or trash coming from households, commercial, indus­trial, and institutional establish­ments could be considered hazardous wastes.

The household MSW could include toilet cleaners, furniture polish, carpet shampoo, bleach-based cleaners, air fresheners, paints, disinfectants, paint removers, used batteries, paint thinners, used oil, among others. Since there is no effective waste segregation yet for household HWs, they are mixed with other types of wastes and burned in dumps and landfills.

Cezar E. Pacheco, president of the Philippine section of the Air and Waste Management Association, says multinational corporations who are conscious of their global corporate images are exporting their HW to European countries like France, Belgium, Great Britain, Netherlands, and Germany for proper treatment and disposal. This is particularly true for companies that have or aspiring to have ISO 14001 certification, a proof that the company adheres to the best global practices in environmental management.

Local companies cannot afford to “export” their hazardous waste for proper disposal. “Local companies will tell you to go to hell if you appear at their doorstep telling them to have their hazardous wastes exported somewhere,” Pacheco says.

Pacheco says these companies would rather store their wastes on-site, hoping that an appropriate HW handling facility would be available in the future. However, many of them could run out of storage space and are forced to contract out the disposal of their wastes.

“Many of these hazardous substances could have ended being disposed of in secret landfills, creeks, rivers, and ravines,” says Pacheco who manages a firm exporting HW to European countries.

The disposal of wastes in open dumps makes these places doubly dangerous to humans. Dumps are usually open spaces. Rainwater easily gets through, percolates through the wastes, dissolving its constituents to produce leachate. The waste constituents find their way to the groundwater, contami­nating the water sources of nearby communities.

Pacheco says “landfill gas,” or methane generated during the decomposition of organic wastes, easily ignites fires, leading to the burning of garbage. Operators of the dumps also regularly set fire to refuse to reduce the volume and prevent them from becoming “smokey mountains” that attract the attention of residents and authorities.

The process of combustion in these dumps is usually incomplete, producing carbon monoxide, furans and dioxins, which considered highly toxic substan­ces. This is particularly true when the garbage being burned contains chlorinated organic substances.

Some of the highlights of the Jica report seem to confirm many of the deepest fears regarding HW:

1. HW generators are not well aware of the importance of HW categorization and segregation at the source for proper hazardous wage management as required in government regulations.

2. Collectors of municipal wastes also act as recyclers. If the collector of municipal waste gathers waste oil, and other hazardous wastes, it is unlikely that the waste is treated properly through the recycling route. Other HWs are mixed with the municipal waste and brought to the municipal landfill.

3. The concept of intermediate treatment of HW prior to disposal is absent in the Philippines as there are no landfill standards for industrial wastes as well as no landfill for HW.

4. Some of the collectors are storing the HW in their own premises, but it seems the others are disposing it somewhere else illegally. Some of the generators are obliged to commission local treaters, which are doubtful in terms of their treatment capability, only because these treaters are registered with EMB and there may be no other alternative.

5. All HW transporters are required to display appropriate warning signs on their vehicles transporting the HW. However, except for tank lorries, most fleets or vehicles transport HW without any warning signage. In some cases, transporters load used batteries inside vans, used oil in drums and HW sludge in open trucks without using signboards. This is strictly illegal.

6. Some plastics and resins are used as fuel by cement plants. Municipal waste collectors also collect these kinds of wastes, however, treatment of these wastes is troublesome.

7. In Japan, firms no longer use chlorinated organic compounds such as trichloroethylene (TCE) because it is cancer-causing. In the Philippines, a considerable volume of trichloroethylene is still being used because it efficiently removes grease. Alternative solvents such as isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and distilled water washing are used in the country but becoming more unfavorable for some companies because of their flammability. Since the Philippines has yet to develop environmental quality standards for groundwater, the use of TCE is not yet regulated.

Conclusion