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Box 16 Making Positive Impacts
Sonia S. Mendoza
The Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of the Philippines mandates the decentralization
of waste management to the barangay level (the smallest unit of government). Each barangay
or a cluster of barangay is mandated to establish Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) where
the segregated waste collected from the point of generation will be managed to keep the
community clean and free of disease-causing vermin and micro-organisms.
Mother Earth Foundation
(MEF) and other groups in the Ecowaste Coalition conduct training
workshops on waste management to the different sectors of society – to barangays, schools,
government offices, business establishments, church groups and NGOs. We have helped
establish successful sites in cooperation with these sectors and in particular with barangays.
We started with pilot barangays and they have achieved waste diversion rates of at least 62
per cent to at most 90 per cent. At present we are working with municipalities, cities and
most recently a whole province.
Barangay Bagumbuhay is densely populated and has virtually no land space for composting. It
is very clean and is able to divert 62 per cent of waste from landfill. The barangay employed
4 eco-aides at the start of the project in 2003 and now has 14 full-time employees. Income
from their Ecowaste programme and incentives from the City Mayor have enabled them to add
a conference hall, a session hall for barangay meetings and a lush garden which is an eco-tour
site. Residual wastes from sweet wrappers, composite packaging for chips, etc are gathered
by about 20 to 25 families. These are cut into small pieces in their homes and sold to the
barangay for 6 US cents per kilogram. These pieces are incorporated into their pavement
tiles, which are now sold at US$1 per piece. These will supply the sidewalk beautification
of a portion of the district where the barangay is located. The barangay boasts a gym and
a day-care centre for its residents. The City Health Centre has reported that incidences of
diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera and respiratory diseases have gone down in the barangay since
the Ecowaste programme was implemented. With another composting unit planned for next
year, it will achieve 85 per cent waste diversion.
Barangay Parang in another city in Metro Manila is also an eco-tour site for students, local
government units and offices from all over the country. They have a lush garden of herbs,
vegetables, ornamental plants and fruit-bearing trees near their composting area, an audiovisual
room and a livelihood area where beautiful paper beads are made from glossy magazine pages.
The livelihood team could not cope with the local demand for their beads, trays and other
products, which are displayed in their souvenir shop. The barangay joins in an annual exhibit
along the riverbanks and gets to display their beautiful products from recyclable discards to
visitors from the different cities in Metro Manila and the provinces.
The Municipality of Ibaan (south of Manila) has no dumpsite and all its 26 barangays have an
MRF where composting (if not done in backyards) and further sorting of clean recyclables is
done. They have organic vegetable gardens in the backyards and in the barangay MRFs produce
fresh squash, cucumbers, eggplant and okra. There are no rubbish bins along the highway in
this municipality. All discards are responsibly addressed in the households or in the barangay
MRFs. Colourful lanterns, Christmas decorations and shopping bags have been crafted from
the residual waste of 2-litre soft drink bottles, juice packs and plastic straws.
In Caloocan City, 155 out of 188 barangays have established MRFs. The recyclables are col
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lected and stored in mobile MRFs for barangays that have no space. Some of its barangays
exchange rice for recyclables brought by their residents, and space allotted for the programme
has expanded to three times its original size.
These and many other examples in different parts of the Philippines have become educational
tour sites for other local government units and communities. Discards management has
sparked community participation and inculcated a sense of pride and belonging among the
residents.
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Positive Development
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