“I’M AGAINST what I like to call kaway-kaway environmentalism,” Herwin Jerome Unidad (V BS Ps MSE) said. Instead of waving his hand around and proclaiming that he’s an environmentalist, he said that he’d rather do something concrete to respond to environmental issues today.
This is why Unidad is part of the Ateneo Environmental Management Coalition (AEMC), a newly-formed group tasked to come up with solutions to environmental problems in the Loyola Schools.
Vice President Ma. Assunta Cuyegkeng, Ph.D., established the AEMC last March to unify divided and sporadic environmental attempts from teachers and students.
“Dr. Cuyegkeng envisioned a team that will solidly work and coordinate all these little efforts so that it will become a unified Loyola Schools environment project,” said Lourdes Sumpaico, consultant for special projects for the Office of the Vice President.
AEMC includes faculty members from the Environmental Science (ES) Department, some University administrators and personnel, and student leaders from the Sanggunian ng Mag-aaral , Council of Organizations of the Ateneo (COA), and the Environmental Science Society (ESS).
On this ground
For Sumpaico, AEMC is grounded on what life is. “We are all stewards of our earth. And, there’s also one earth that we should care for,” she said.
“[AEMC is] some form of creation-spirituality that we work on… We put our efforts together because we see that if it is organized and coordinated together, then the impact will be greater and significant,” she said.
The first step
By June, the AEMC will be conducting a waste audit in the Loyola Schools. A waste audit means that garbage in the Loyola Schools would be examined and sorted into categories.
“Solid waste is a very big problem here in the Loyola Schools, but, to scientifically solve it, we need to know the types of waste we generate and how much,” said ES Department Lecturer Abigail Favis.
After studying the generated waste, the AEMC can propose suggestions for waste reduction strategies, Favis said.
The idea for the waste audit began with two ESS members: Unidad and David So (V BS Ps MSE). They conducted an audit under the ESS last January, which, said Favis, showed depressing results.
Favis said that the two students presented the findings to Sumpaico, who included it in her agenda for the AEMC.
Studying the caf
AEMC will also conduct a review on cafeteria management, said Sumpaico.
To make the college cafeteria more environmentally-friendly, the coalition plans to eliminate the use of styrofoam by September. Instead, students will be provided with plates and a separate dishwashing area.
The plastic bottles gathered from the garbage will also be given to Ateneo Multi-Purpose Cooperative personnel to sell and generate extra income.
AEMC also plans to have a materials recovery facility (MRF). A MRF (pronounced “murf”), is where recyclables are sorted and prepared for the market.
The human side
AEMC will also spread the advocacy through student groups. The promotion of a more environmental-friendly lifestyle has two levels—organizational level and individual level, said COA Health and Environment Cluster Head Vivienne Erica Zerrudo (IV BS ES).
Ultimately, the coalition is advocating for a change of lifestyle—“a change of doing things, a change of valuing what God has given us,” said Sumpaico.
“Hopefully that can be done, and that can be concretized very specifically with the way we manage our waste, with the way we simplify our lifestyle, with the way we differentiate between needs and wants,” Sumpaico said.
With reports from Ma. Anna Margarita V. Bueno
