Stopping the Backyard Fires That Choke Filipino Neighborhoods

EcoWaste Coalition traces its roots to the 1998-99 Philippine Clean Air Coalition campaign that won the country's Clean Air Act and its ban on waste incineration, and formally organized as EcoWaste Coalition in 2000 around the new Ecological Solid Waste Management Act. Today it is a public-interest network of more than 150 community, church, school, environmental and health groups working for a zero-waste, toxic-free Philippines. Its long-running campaign against open burning of household and agricultural waste documents the dioxins, heavy metals and carcinogens released when trash is torched in backyards, farms and dumps, and pushes barangays and cities to enforce the legal ban and adopt composting and recycling alternatives instead.