How Barangay Holy Spirit in Quezon City became a model for community-based solid waste management

By Rosalyn-Frances Marcelo

“Several community representatives in almost all parts of the country have visited our barangay and wanted to replicate the project. However, when they ask about the capital, their enthusiasm begins to falter. My advice is that they should realize how Barangay Holy Spirit started. Start small. In our case we started with manual composting and simple waste segregation. The key, really, is initiative.”
- Jovita Santos, OIC,
Barangay Holy Spirit MRF

The garbage success story of Barangay Holy Spirit (BHS) in Quezon City emerged from the recognized need to revitalize the community and protect its citizens from illnesses and health problems. In the past, the lack of concern of the residents was evident in the prevailing unsanitary conditions in the barangay. The streets were littered with uncollected garbage, along with flies, mosquitoes and other disease-bearing pests. After more than a decade of hard work and despite an average of 66,000 kilos of waste generated daily, Barangay Holy Spirit has maintained its overall cleanliness and environmental sanitation through a successful Community-Based Solid Waste Management (CBSWM) program. Read more »

From simple recycling bins to high-tech pneumatic tubes, cities around the world are employing a variety of strategies to manage their garbage

By Geraldine Matabang

Waste management is hardly a 21st century phenomenon, as records show the earliest landfill was created way back in 3000 BC. In the beginning of the twentieth century, proper disposal of waste was mainly an issue of public health and sanitation. Today, with the advent of globalization, electronic communication and disposable consumer items, waste has become a complex problem and is now more prominently taken as a matter of environmental sustainability. The quantities and composition of wastes people generate on a global scale presents a major ecological concern as more waste mean greater pressure on the environment’s capacity to cope with the damaging impacts of waste disposal.

“While driving around the countryside, I saw the landfill. It looked so clean!”

Modern production and consumption trends have also led to new categories of waste stream that now includes hazardous wastes, e-wastes, and hyperbulk wastes. But what ends up in our trash bins and how we eliminate waste differs from place to place, depending on one’s economic status and lifestyle. Rich countries consume more and therefore they accumulate more waste. Global trends also show that as countries get richer, the share of organic waste decreases and the paper and plastic wastes increase. This consumption pattern represents an unsustainable practice for waste management because non-biodegradables require more landfill space for disposal. It is said that one plastic bag takes one second to manufacture, 20 minutes to use, and 100 to 400 years to degrade naturally. Read more »

Give your garbage a new lease on life

Recycling is the recovery of discarded materials to be used as raw material again

Most of us would probably say that we are willing to recycle. But still we end up throwing out recyclable materials because we don’t know what to do with them. Here are five ways to help you get on the path to recycling:

1. Start by segregating recyclables at home. Separate metal, paper, glass and plastics into their own containers. Segregated waste is easier to collect for recycling. These also sell higher than when they are recovered from the dumpsite by scavengers because these are “cleaner” and not yet stained by garbage. For example, at the Rodriguez landfill in Montalban, Rizal, scavenged tin cans sell for P4 per kilo compared with P5.50 to P6 per kilo outside. Hazardous wastes such as used car batteries, ink cartridges, and used electronic appliances also need to be separated from the trash.

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