BEING an efficient and profitable business goes hand in hand with being a good steward of the environment.

Over the weekend, as early as 8 a.m., hundreds of Filipinos trooped to the “Trash to Cash” recyling market-day activity simultaneously held in 31 SM Supermalls nationwide to sell segregated garbage in exchange for cash.

“It’s a fact that recycling creates greater economic value than throwing it all away. Yet for years, we have ignored the tremendous economic potential of recycling,” said Amy Gonzales, mall manager of SM Baguio City.

Working with accredited recyclers, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Philippine Business for the Environment and the local governments, SM Supermalls think the whole idea of a recycling market is to encourage people to dispose of their waste responsibly and at the same time, making profit doing it.

“We want the recycle market days to be a regular activity in our malls to encourage the public to increasing our recycling efforts and eliminating unnecessary waste,” Gonzales said.

Most of us have some idea that we waste too much and don’t recycle enough, but we tend not to think about what happens to our waste once it has left our homes,” she said.

SM’s recycle market day held last Saturday is part of a series of the supermalls’ waste-trading markets in support of Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000. The law calls for “practical applications of environmentally sound techniques of waste minimization,” such as segregation, recycling, resource recovery, reuse and composting.

The trading activity held at SM Supermalls parking lot started in February 2007 and is being held every first Saturday of the month.

Most of the people who brought recyclables during the trading activity brought scrap papers and cardboard, empty ink and toner cartridge, plastic bottles and plastic scraps, aluminum, tin cans, junk televisions and washing machines, computers, compact discs and even old cellular phones—all for sale to partner junk shops.

“Recycling can be a worthwhile venture. Every ton of paper recycled and every ton of aluminum saved from the garbage heap creates jobs, expands manufacturing, and reduces operating costs for local businesses and households,” said Karen Padilla, public information officer of SM Baguio.

The three “Rs”—reducing, reusing and recycling—are integral to the health of the environment, economy and community, Padilla said.

Padilla said this April, a total of P36,313 was generated from the waste market in SM Baguio, much higher than last month’s P32,087.

Aside from SM Supermalls’ tenants, some of the local business partners who regularly join the waste market are from the Tibal Scrap Depot, Sindayen’s Junk Shop, Inkline Trading and Glory Resource Scrap Shop.

One man’s junk is another man’s treasure

Glory Maige, 45, has been dealing with recyclable waste since 1975. She is proprietor of the Glory Resource Scrap Shop, one of the highest earners at the waste market days, she was able to raise some P51,704 last December.

Maige’s shop buys waste from local residents such as paper, newspapers, cartons, magazines, metals, plastics and many other recyclables. They sell the recyclable materials to recycling factories in Baguio City, Manila and other parts of the country.

“We earn from other people’s waste and we are also made aware of our contribution to protecting the environment,” Maige said. “It’s really helpful because, in a way the local residents are learning how to segregate their waste.”

The city dumps around 300 tons of waste in its open-dump site daily, 65 percent of which are biodegradable waste.

SM supermall officials said they are moving toward the goal of recycling 100 percent of recyclable products, eliminating materials that can’t be recycled and instituting recycling programs in all SM Supermalls nationwide.

In fact, starting in January, SM Baguio imposed the use of biodegradable plastic bags, beginning with the mall’s supermarket and department store.

“Waste in the country is one of the most pressing environmental issues. So instead of simply going to landfill where they generate harmful greenhouse-gas emissions, we should learn how to recycle and turn them into cash,” Padilla aid.

With the waste market at the malls, converting trash to cash is as easy as going on a shopping spree.

THE spike in the prices of food will hit the poor the hardest and pose risks to their nutrition, especially if the government will not take measures to shield them from price increases, warned the International Food Policy Research Institute  (IFPRI).

LEGISLATORS lauded the increase of 1,000 percent in the family-planning budget, saying the government really needed to address the booming population because of its effects not only on food security but also on development plans.

The performance of Customs collectors should not be measured solely on their increased collection but on the increments resulting from their vigilance to prevent revenue leakage out of technical smuggling.

AMID the Philippine Electricity Market Corp.’s readiness to operate the power market in the Visayas, the Department of Energy (DOE) said Tuesday it has deferred the proposed launching of the Visayas Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).

NINGBO city in China’s Zhejiang province is sending a business delegation in the Philippines by middle of this year to look into possible investment opportunities with particular interests in garments and electrical equipment, said the Philippine Consulate in Shanghai.

THE Arroyo government must move fast to cushion the impact of an economic slowdown in the United States, the country’s top trading partner, by quickly adopting anticipatory measures, such as lowering  transaction cost to prop up the export industry and intensify promotion of Philippine exports to other countries, Sen. Loren Legarda suggested Tuesday.

DAGUPAN CITY—Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has tagged Pangasinan as one big sleeping giant in agriculture even as it now lags far behind in the production of rice, corn and vegetables over the years.

BEING an efficient and profitable business goes hand in hand with being a good steward of the environment.