In the early part of 2000, I had the opportunity to meet and interview ecological artist and writer Odette Alcantara in her home in Blue Ridge. She was the convenor of Artists for the Environment and founding member of Earth Philippines, a non government organization. It was a very inspiring day meeting someone so motivated by her cause to make something useful out of waste materials – recyclables.
She converted a lot of waste materials found in her old house in Quezon City to an extraordinary and functional home décor. She said that segregation of waste according to its type is one of the simple steps to deal with waste at home.
Here’s my favorite quote from that interview. “Environmental protection is everybody’s job; unfortunately not everyone loves the environment. I think its ignorance that keeps us detach from this precious planet, which is our entire life support’s system.”
If Ms. Alcantara were alive today she would be glad to find out that more and more organizations locally and overseas are promoting renewable energy and programs that deals with converting waste to energy, opportunity fuels and clean coal.