By Joyce Pangco Pañares and Macon Ramos Araneta

President Arroyo is requiring business establishments and households to segregate their trash in a bid to reduce solid waste output in the country by 50 percent within the next six months.

Mrs. Arroyo said the order will also require local government units to operate their own materials recovery facilities to stop their dependence on sanitary landfills in disposing of their trash.

The President, who has assumed the role of anti-climate change czar last month, ordered Environment Secretary Joselito Atienza to draft the executive order in keeping with her commitment to cut by half the country’s solid waste production by August.

Mrs. Arroyo met with Atienza as part of her “green Friday” program where she devotes five hours of the day “to concerns and initiatives for environmental security.”

The President also allocated P2 billion for the Environment Department to embark on a massive reforestation project for forest lands and protected areas.

The President also ordered the National Power Corp. to release funds provided under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act for the protection of watersheds and water resources.

“With due consultation and proper relocation assistance, all riverbanks and waterways must be cleared of informal structures and obstacles. All waterways must be restored to waters suitable for fisheries and boating within 24 months,” she said.

Mrs. Arroyo also ordered the Health Department and the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System to encourage sludge excavation contractors and water concessionaires to undertake a methane recovery program from human and animal waste to convert it into cooking gas and other forms of energy.

This developed as a waste and pollution watchdog called on the government to pay serious attention to eliminating toxic chemicals in household, childcare, cosmetic and other products commonly used by women consumers as the country celebrated International Women’s Day yesterday.

The EcoWaste Coalition said Filipino women should be honored by protecting them from harmful chemicals that place their health at risk, noting that they are more vulnerable to toxic chemicals because many of these chemicals, including heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants and other chemicals of concern, get stored in fat cells.

“Women carry more fat cells due to their childbearing and breastfeeding functions, making them more at risk to lipophilic or fat-liking chemicals,” said retired nurse Elsie Brandes-de Veyra of the EcoWaste Coalition’s Steering Committee.

At the same time, the group urged Filipino women to insist on their right to toxic-free products and to a healthy environment to safeguard their bodies and their capacity to bear, nourish and sustain life.

“We are particularly keen to see the adoption and implementation of all-embracing reforms in the country’s policy on chemicals that will ban the use of substances in products that pose hazards to women’sreproductive health,” De Veyra said.