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Health Care Without Harm-Asia (HCWH-Asia) will be holding a forum on the climate and health impacts of incineration and the Ebola epidemic with environmental scientist Dr. Jorge Emmanuel as speaker. The forum is being organized in line with the Philippines’ celebration of Zero Waste Month.
The noted scientist, who helped draft the World Health Organization’s interim guidelines on the management of Ebola waste, will be in the country to give a discussion on “Incineration: Public Health Impact, Climate Change Implications, and the Ebola Epidemic” to be held on January 28 at the Cocoon Boutique Hotel, corner Scout Tobias and Scout Rallos streets, Barangay Laging Handa, Quezon City. The luncheon-forum will be from 12 noon until 4 pm.
Dr. Emmanuel has served as medical waste consultant for the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Bank, the United States’ National Institutes of Health, and health and environment ministries and non-government organizations in about 40 countries across the globe. He will provide a unique and comprehensive insight into incineration, the waste treatment system that has brought adverse effects to the environment and has threatened the health of the general public. The forum will also be the first of its kind in the Philippines where pressing concerns on Ebola will be discussed by a top international expert.
HCWH-Asia, part of a strong global organization that is at the center of transforming the health care sector through anti-incineration advocacy and the promotion of green and healthy hospitals, will also be participating in the first Zero Waste Fair, one of the highlights of the month-long event. The three-day exhibit will run from January 22-24 at the Quezon Memorial Circle, Quezon City.
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} The organization will be showcasing during the fair the successes of three Philippine member-hospitals of Global Green and Healthy Hospitals, a major global campaign of HCWH that represents the interest of more than 9,700 hospitals and health centers from six continents that are committed to reducing their ecological footprint and promoting environmental health. The three hospitals – the Philippine Heart Center of Quezon City, St Paul Hospital-Tuguegarao and Maria Reyna Xavier University Hospital of Cagayan de Oro – will be exhibiting their best practices to encourage other hospitals and health care institutions to implement proper health care waste management without the use of incineration. Guests will have the chance to view actual designs and interview the experts who designed and implement the hospitals’ waste management.
The Zero Waste Month commenced with the Zero Waste Youth Convergence on January 7, 2015, led by the Mother Earth Foundation (MEF), a Philippines-based environmentalist organization.
Through Proclamation 760 issued last year, President Benigno Aquino III declared every January as Zero Waste Month. The proclamation was done to “promote designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, and to conserve and recover all resources, and not indiscriminately dispose or burn them”.
HCWH is among the staunch environmentalist organizations in the world advocating against incineration for over two decades now. The group’s regional office, HCWH-Asia, is working closely with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, the EcoWaste Coalition and the MEF to organize activities in line with the groundbreaking event in the Philippines. The organizations have been at the forefront of the campaign for the reduction of waste in the country through viable, alternative means.