To ban or not to ban plastic bags

Plastic bags are made from polyethylene, which comes from petroleum, a nonrenewable resource.They are ubiquitous. Between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.However, less than 1 percent of the bags are recycled because it costs more to recycle a bag than to produce a new one. It costs $4,000 to process and recycle a ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold for $32.If the economics don’t work, recycling efforts don’t work.Cloth bagWe can save...

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Notice of Disconnection: Living off grid in Wisconsin

“Hi everyone.  We’ve decided to live off grid.  Goodbye to light and water bills, sudden power interruptions, etc…”Remember those dreaded words in red ink, the final warning if you haven’t paid your bills for more than three months? Well, we’ve written our own notice of disconnection, and we are loving every minute of it, including the many challenges.Living off grid is not for the faint of heart.  It entails sacrifice; awareness raised two levels higher than the typical zombie state, and a measure of bravado that you are the master...

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Baguio City Sans Pine Trees

Outrage! Rallies! Protests! Court Suits! These are the everyday headlines in my hometown which is Baguio, supposedly the summer capital of the Philippines. The whole government used to transfer to this city because of the cool, green temperature even in summer. Not anymore. Baguio is now becoming another concrete jungle punctuated with squatters all over its mountains. And now the ShoeMart (SM) branch of Baguio is proposing a 7-level project that will cut another 182 trees. Somehow they think it will perfume their project if they say that the...

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Introducing MEF’s Zero Waste Academy

After 13 long years of conducting trainings and seminars on solid waste management and delivering talks and lectures on other environmental issues and concerns in and out of the country, MEF is proud to present its new brainchild, the Zero Waste Academy: Mother Earth Foundation’s focused approach to popularize Zero Waste and mainstream Environmental Education.The Zero Waste Academy, MEF’s training programbeginning 2012, has three (3) major components:1) Certificate Courses for Local Government Executives, Schools and ESWM educators;2) Teacher Training...

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PROFILES: Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez

Aside from bringing the City of San Fernando to the heights it has never reached before with his style of leadership, indomitable will and his “Magsilbi Tamu” tenet, Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez has become the epitome of public service to many people. He is one of the few who have managed to serve in various capacities in all three branches of government: judiciary, legislative and executive.  From the ranks as a court stenographer, Mayor Oca rose to become an ardent human rights and litigation lawyer and founding president of, among others, the...

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Newport, Rhode Island: A Journey into the Past

Visiting with my daughter Patricia in New York has always meant an adventure is in the horizon. Being much younger and bolder, Pat’s dream is to see and experience as much of this amazing planet as she possibly can, and having a compliant and indulgent mother in tow makes for the perfect partnership!Through the years the two of us have ‘done’ Prague in a freezing cold winter, Paris and Provence in the mellow autumn of southern France, and Istanbul in the beautiful Mediterranean spring.   Last year, unable to make the necessary preparations...

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On Being an Eco-Friendly Model Teacher

MEF started it allIt was October 2010 when Mother Earth Foundation, headed by Sir Froilan Grate, came into the lives of CRACMES teachers. He introduced us into a new world of Environmental Concepts.  Through the seminars and workshops given by MEF, we were awakened to the reality that our mother earth needs our care, and that we should do our part in taking care of it.  The students became aware of the value of the things around them, the importance of trees and water, and the place where we live in. MEF taught us many lessons that we...

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