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Sunday, October 22, 2017
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CULTURAL festivals such as Bacolod City’s MassKara bring people together in a celebration of our rich cultural heritage. These spectacles of drama, excitement and fun are platforms that enable families, neighbors and communities to rekindle ties, honor ethnic roots, feed and entertain guests.
However, are we mindful of the environmental consequences of our vibrant community celebrations? Festivals are usually marked with utmost delight, spending sprees and typical wastefulness. But by striving to reduce waste to zero or darn near, preventing all forms of pollution, conserving water, electricity and other resources, and saving funds for basic needs and charities, we can make our festivals fitting expressions of our communion as stewards of Mother Nature.
The truth is that we hardly ever consider our festivals’ environmental impacts. Our customary feasts and rites, fairs and concerts, parades and pageants, fireworks displays and even our salo-salo can severely spoil the environment, set off pollution and climate change. For instance, the wasteful use of materials, electricity and water, the penchant for single-use plastic and other disposables, the lack of ecological system for reducing and managing discards, the bursting of firecrackers or the burning of used plastic buntings or PVC-coated tarpaulin can cause stress and damage to our ecosystems and impair the health of humans and other creatures with climate-changing greenhouse gases, persistent organic pollutants and other harmful chemicals.
We must pay serious attention in reducing our festivals’ health and environmental impacts, and strive to transform them into “zero-waste celebrations.” Can we celebrate without causing further damage to our ecosystems that are crying for healing and protection? Yes we can.
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