While the group welcomed calls to revisit the country’s waste management framework, it said any reform of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act must strengthen the principles of waste prevention, reduction, reuse, segregation, recycling, composting, and producer responsibility. President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Monday in his fifth SONA, called for an overhaul of the country’s 25-year-old solid waste management law.Marcos urged Congress to update the law to support modern waste management technologies considering waste disposal remains a major concern that requires policy changes. He mentioned one systemic intervention is to update the 25-year-old Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, aligning it with modern waste management practices, such as waste-to-energy and waste treatment technology.” IDIS reiterated its opposition to waste-to-energy incineration as a solution to the country’s waste crisis, saying such projects do not address the root causes of waste generation and instead risk sustaining demand for large volumes of waste. For a project of this scale, environmental protection must begin before construction, not after impacts have occurred,” it stressed.