Two Burn Piles at the Hall of Justice

This is going to be rather straightforward. The title says it all. There are two burn piles at the local Hall of Justice.

Maybe you cannot tell that these are burn piles but they are. Littered about each mound are the charred remains of leaves and garbage. I even confirmed it by asking two employees who were sitting out for a smoke break.  Think of the irony here that the groundskeepers at the Hall of Justice are breaking the law when they do their work. That would be R.A. 9003 which forbids open burning of waste. 

Burning Electrical Wires

I was out for an afternoon run when the sky darkened and I knew I had to return home quickly before the downpour began. On the way back I saw smoke emanating from the sugarcane fields ahead and I figured they were simply burning the fields as is normally done after a harvest. But the closer I got I could tell something was off.

For one thing the smoke was thick and black much unlike the smoke of a burning sugarcane field which is thin and gray. For another thing the smoke was concentrated in one area. It was obvious someone was burning something they should not be burning. When I finally got a look at the burn pile I was shocked beyond belief.

They were burning a jumble of electrical cords! 

There was a man sitting in a truck and a guy who seemed to be about 14 or 15 tending the fire. I asked him why he was burning electrical cords. He said because he was poor and his family did not have money to pay for his tuition. I asked if someone paid him to burn these cords. He said no. That did not make any sense so I pressed for more information but to no avail.

He also apologized profusely and killed the fire by tossing water on it. 

I was sure they would dump the charred wires in the field but when I returned a few hours later there was nothing but a pile of ash.

The guy in the truck never said a word to me as I talked to his son. I presume that is their relationship, unless he was the one paying the guy to burn the cords.

Anyway, this incident was very bizarre and I was completely disgusted. This is not just burning leaves or garbage at your house. These two people drove off to what they thought was a secluded area, it is not, and illegally and foolishly burned a huge mass of electrical wires. And it's really not about the law. No one in the Philippines cares about the law anyway. These people would not have been fined or jailed even if the PNP had witnessed their crime. The point is the ethics of it. You just don't do this. You do not burn electrical wires out in a sugar cane field. If you don't understand that then you are a lost cause. Allow me to present to you the shopping cart test of civilization which works on the same principles.

Can you pass this test?

Local i*mart Illegally Burns Their Garbage

i*mart is a Philippine based convenience store not unlike 711 or Munsterific. As with every business you would think they follow the law but when it comes to RA 9003 one i*mart simply does not care.  RA 9003 forbids the burning of garbage yet this i*mart has a burn pile right out in front for all to see.

I did not catch the employee lighting this fire on camera but you can see his back as he enters the store to retrieve more garbage to burn. It's a rare thing to catch such a flagrant violation of the law in person. It appears they do it in the early morning as well.

The first picture shows the bag on fire and the second shows the large flame with i*mart in the background. 

A few days later the same thing. A burn pile in the early morning.  Who is burning the trash when the business is closed? The security guard on duty of course. I saw him do it with my own eyes. 

What is so hard about collecting the garbage and placing it in a secure location until it can be properly disposed of? The garbage truck passes by practically every day of the week.  Something could be worked out with them.  There simply is no excuse for anyone, especially a business, to burn  their garbage.

Smoky Piles 5

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Smoky Piles 1

This is the inaugural post of a new series titled: "Smoky Piles."  

The air in the Philippines is not so fresh and breezy and tropical as one might think.  Everywhere you go you see people wearing face masks so they don't have to breathe in the nasty pollution. A big source of this pollution is burning piles of leaves and trash.  Imagine just waking up and throwing open the windows to let in the cool morning air.  All of a sudden you are choking on smoke because someone is burning leaves.

The nasty, acrid smell of smoke can happen at anytime of day. Filipinos are not discriminating about when they choose to burn their leaves and trash. Yes they burn trash here in the Philippines. But enough explanations.  

Here are a few pictures of smoky piles of leaves and trash in the Philippines.

Improper Garbage Disposal

Today is Wednesday.  That means it is garbage day.  You set out your garbage and the garbage truck comes by and hauls it away.  To let all know of their presence loud, very loud, music is played from a loudspeaker on top of the truck.  It is impossible to not know they are in the area.  They even come twice a week.  Wednesday and Saturday. Everyone knows they come.  There is simply no excuse for ignorance which is why the following picture makes me really angry.

Why is this bag of trash sitting in a burn pile on garbage day after the garbage truck has already come by?  

These people are so gormless.  They cruelly tie up their dog outside to a tree on the other side of the road from their house all day, rain or shine and instead of properly disposing of their garbage they intend to burn it! They can't even find a place to store it until Saturday when the garbage truck comes once more. 

What can you do with neighbours like this?  Neighbours who will casually stink up the air with the poisonous and toxic fumes of burning plastic. Neighbours who have no consideration of anyone else in the neighbourhood. Neighbours who can't even be bothered to take care of their animal or dispose of their trash properly. They, and many others like them, simply do not care.

It's sickening and disgusting having to witness these same old tropes being played out time and again throughout the Philippines.  And Greenpeace has the gall to blame pollution on big corporations!  No one is forcing these people to burn their trash and pollute the air. The fact that the garbage is collected twice a week is a testament to the fact that the city would much rather people dispose of their trash properly than burn it.

The All-Day Smoky Pile

As ever some neighbours decided to burn their pile of leaves and twigs and brush.  Smokey and nasty.  Gross and polluted.  Blah blah blah.

But this pile was a little different.

Usually the fire dies down and out within an hour.  This pile went all day long.  The above photo was taken at 9 am.  The following photo was taken at 7 pm!

Still going strong and still stinking up the air after 10 hours.

If it had not been for the torrential downpour that night then surely the pile would still have been smoking long into the night and early hours of the morning. Only a very rude or very careless person would allow such a thing to happen.

Burning Trash

Filipinos love to burn leaves and trash. They just cannot wait for the garbage man (who comes twice a week!) to arrive so they pile it up big and small just to watch it burn.  Actually its mostly small.  And there's hardly any fire to speak of.  And no is watching.

Burn pile?  More like smoke pile. 

There's hardly anything there worth burning. Burn piles are usually huge and composed of leaves. Not in the Philippines. In the Philippines they will burn the tiny little pile they sweep from their doorstep just because they see no other way to get rid of it.

These burn piles, and some do start rather large but always die down into a smoke pile that will pollute the air for hours on end, are a nasty inevitability of living in the Philippines.  Sometimes mornings here are nice and lovely.  So peaceful and still. Especially after days of rain.  The day is beginning and you got a large cup of coffee and the windows and doors are open to let the fresh air clear out your house and then...out of nowhere...the acrid stench of smoke fills the air and the morning is ruined because someone decided to burn their little sweep pile. 

Open burning is just another area where Filipinos have no idea how to be good stewards of the environment or good neighbours. Good neighbours do not force others to breathe in the poisonous smoke generated by burning leaves and garbage.

They don't think to make a compost pile. They don't think to put it in a bag and let the garbage man take it. They don't think to collect all the leaves and toss them into a wooden area. They don't think at all. They only have one thing on their mind:

And they can't even do the burning right.  The goal is to incinerate the pile.  At some point it should become a mini-conflagration. When it dies down into a smoke pile it should be rekindled or put out. At the end there should be a pile of ashes.  What's left is usually a pile of leaves that is still relatively intact because nothing was ever burning. The smoke only gave the illusion of burning. 

Illusory and ineffective. How fitting a description for just about everything in this country.

And notice in the pics of the smoke pile how there is no one in attendance.  Not only do they start burning leaves right on the wall surrounding their house, which is about as foolish a thing as one can do, but they just walk away and que sera, sera. I have never once seen a burn pile being attended to. 

Notice also the contents of the burn pile. Not only are there leaves but there is also plastic! Filipinos won't think twice about burning plastic. Never mind all the toxins floating through the air and into your lungs. The air is already polluted enough from the unregulated motorcycles, cars, jeepneys, and trucks which regularly spew out thick black exhaust. What is needed is more airborne toxins and pollutants from burning plastic garbage.

They even burn plastic when they barbecue. The coals come in a plastic bag and they just light the whole thing on fire, bag and coals.  So when they go to barbecue their pork sticks and chicken intestines they now have toxic smoke infecting the meat. They aren't only breathing in the toxins but they are eating them as well.

Filipinos are literally poisoning themselves and their neighbours and they don't care.