In the later part of the 1980s, Merci Ferrer, executive director of Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) in Southeast Asia, was about to become a mother, “and I started reading about the advantages and beauty of breastfeeding. I kind of automatically linked breastfeeding to something really wonderful and green, (things that are) environmentally-friendly.” This made her ask “a really, really personal question: What kind of life and future will I give my daughter? What is at stake when I finally deliver her to this world? I was so much into weighing things like natural versus artificial, sustainable versus costly and alien system of feeding a child.”

The increased awareness on environmentalism eventually led Ferrer to lead Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), a global coalition of 473 organizations in more than 50 countries, working to protect health by reducing pollution in health care sector, in Southeast Asia – the group that recently made the news for bringing to attention the need to phase out (even gradually) all mercury containing devices in all Philippine hospitals, successfully helping in the passage of the Department of Health’s (DOH) Administrative Order 2008-0021 that mandates all hospitals to gradually eliminate mercury-use in its health care system.

Seen as a “very welcome move that will elevate the status of the Philippines as an environmentally-health conscious nation and the Philippines’ health system as less toxic to the environment,” says Ferrer, “the Philippines is now not just the only country in the world to ban the use of incinerators, it is also the first in the whole of Southeast Asia — and for that matter, the first developing country – to commit to the phase-out of mercury in its health care system.”

For Ferrer, greening starts at home. “Nothing beats that if you want to do something worthy and pretty, you start with your immediate family, in your homes. It is I believe the best order of things,” she says. Thus, “what I am most proud of is having been able to convince my two girls to go green. At such young age, I can see them growing into responsible members of our society. And if all parents can feel that way about their children, expect a better world.”

Becoming environmentally conscious has “affected me in so many ways actually,” Ferrer says. Cost wise, for example, “it is both cheaper and expensive and time-consuming – cheaper because I stop buying the things I don’t need; expensive because I started buying alternatives that are costlier; (and time consuming, such as in) the segregation of wastes at home, (which) can be tedious, imagine the idea of minimizing wastes and then you get into compostables and recyclables.” Fortunately, “my family is quick to pick this up, (and) I am proud to say that I have the least basura (garbage) in the neighborhood.”

Ferrer acknowledges that there will always be people “who are so afraid of change, that they would not even dare consider alternatives. Like our experience in hospitals, (with many) not too keen to phase out mercurycontaining blood pressure devices in favor of mercury-free alternatives all because of sentimental value. But eventually, once they realize the merit of what we are saying, especially if this is backed by studies, they start listening to you. And before you know it, they’re joining your campaign.”

For Ferrer, it is encouraging when people ask the question “Why?.” And questions like: “Why not burn?,” “Why not use straws in our beverages?,” and “Why not plastics?.” Then to be followed by: “What are the alternatives?” and “What can I do?” “Many people (now) want to know more, and what they can do and if there are alternatives in the market for environment-friendly products. They want to know the good practices,” she says. “It’s a global campaign and everyone should be working. Individuals should do their part, at home, in their community and everywhere they go.”