Ditching the Dump
Landfills are not the answer to the garbage problem
By Ana and Joey Papa
Bangon Kalikasan Movement
www.bangonkalikasan.org
Landfills do not make for a waste-free environment. Waste volumes are synonymous with hauling, dumping, and tipping fees.
The ecological way of addressing the garbage problem is not through a landfill that only ends up as a “glorified dumpsite” but through the Ecology Center system of responsible producers, clean production, and people in households and the community who promote and practice waste prevention and reduction, sorting and segregation at source, reuse, recycling and composting.
The heart and soul of Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, depends on the people whom the local authorities should harness instead of the dump truck; and to whom they should give the land for habitation and livelihood.
It does not follow, however, that the poor LGUs cannot help in contributing significantly to an effective ecological resource management.
Unfortunately, the authorities do not seem to understand ecological waste and resource management as they push instead for sanitary landfills (is there such a thing?). A draft paper which came out in January 2006 on behalf of the League of Cities and League of Municipalities of the Philippines entitled Making R.A. 9003 Work, recognizes the unreasonable expense and demanding requirements of R.A. 9003 for sanitary landfills, but it nevertheless focuses on the need for final disposal facilities and recommends, well, modified or hybrid landfills.
Final disposal facilities (read:landfills) are not the answer to the problem. The law states that every household and establishment in a community should protect the environment and promote public health through resource consciousness, waste prevention, waste sorting and segregation at source, recycling, composting, and use of special, environment-friendly technologies to process residual wastes including hazardous, infectious, and toxic wastes.
The law further mandates a nationwide information, education, and communication effort led by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources with the active participation of other government agencies, non-government organizations, and other groups.
The success of such an effort provided that information, education, and communication (IEC) programs and implementation are faithful to the full ecological framework that the essence of the law invokes could in fact ease the burden on the need for disposal facilities.
On sanitary landfills, it is clear in the law that it is not the next alternative to a controlled dump as is now being asserted by certain vested interests such as those who have succeeded in having this provision on sanitary landfills included in RA 9003 after all the efforts that had been taken to put in the ecological provisions.
The paper Making RA 9003 Work, asserts the following: Most Philippine LGUs are poor (4th to 6th class) and cannot support an effective solid waste management (SWM) system in the country; the cost of operating an effective SWM system is high; technical and financial support systems for the local implementing bodies are weak; infirmities and realities must be considered, such as competition between SWM and other development priorities; a need for economies of scale and œefficiency factors for an effective SWM; high-end and state-of-the-art SWM system in a low-end, low-tech local economy; and conflicting and incomplete implementing guidelines.
There is no quarrel with the fact of the state of poverty in the country. It does not follow, however, that the poor LGUs cannot help in contributing significantly to an effective ecological resource management.
Barangay without a dump
Barangay Tuktukan in Guiguinto, Bulacan, has two tricycles with sidecars for collecting biodegradable waste everyday from a population of about 10,000. The collection is composted in a shed. The product becomes soil enhancer for the community’s vegetable garden and for the collectors’ own plots; in another community, the compost is sold in bulk to a fishpond operator who finds the product more beneficial than the commercially produced feeds.
Most non-biodegradable wastes are sold as soon as the household segregates its waste, and these hardly see the collection day. Those not sold are being kept for the granulator or pulverizer that the municipal government has promised to buy which will turn the residuals into fillers for concrete products, or as raw material for livelihood crafts.
Also, there is no more dumpsite in Tuktukan. Before, all 14 municipalities of Guiguinto dumped their garbage in a one-and-a half hectare property in the barangay, right along MacArthur Highway. Today, the area is overgrown with wild grass and a building has been constructed beside it.
More than the financial profit to be gained is the immeasurable revenue that an empowered community gains from the waste-turned-compost-turned money; and from the preservation of the environment.
What is needed is adequate and timely information, education, and communication on environment and ecology. Too bad many authorities have often used that lame and condescending excuse, “ayaw matuto ang mga tao, ang titigas ng mga ulo” (the people do not want to learn; they are stubborn).
Need for ecology centers
With respect to the other points brought up in the paper, Making RA 9003 Work: The paper refers only to SWM not ESWM. Without the Ecological premise in development, no significant transformation can take place, much less be sustained.
Economies of scale is more akin to centralized, not barangay-based management.
High-end or state-of-the art what? No man-made technology can beat composting with soil, cocodust, leaves, and the like; plus the heat of the sun; and the action of air, water, and microorganisms. Simple non-biodegradables can be recycled with simple know-how or simple equipment.
It is the hazardous, infectious and toxic (HIT) wastes that for now must be dealt with but at the provincial or city level with the use of special, environment friendly technologies that could cost some amount, but only initially. Still, this is less than the cost of establishing and operating a landfill, even just a hybrid one. Besides, this portion of the waste is minimal compared to what can be composted and immediately recycled. It could be further reduced if the advocacy for extended producer responsibility and clean production technologies will succeed.
What we need are Ecology Centers (or Materials Recovery Facilities as referred to in the law, though we prefer the former because we are not only dealing with materials; we are dealing with values).
The recommendations in the paper are anchored on the conclusion that there is a need for disposal facilities because of waste volumes. Recommendations include the upgrading of requirements for controlled dumps, and coming out with a hybrid sanitary disposal facility much like an engineered landfill with less expensive features.
Landfills do not make for a waste-free environment. Waste volumes are synonymous with hauling, dumping, and tipping fees.
We need education for as many people in communities at the shortest time possible. There are no socio-economic boundaries in people’s capabilities to understand and do what is right, given an even playing field of opportunities for enlightenment and with the proper, not necessarily expensive, support. Thus, the people themselves will know how to prevent and reduce their wastes right in their own homes and in the Barangay Ecology Center.
Waste Management | rp | 24 September 2007 |
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By Geraldo Manalo, October 15, 2007 @ 8:00 pm
I am surprised to know that there is a Barangay in Guiguinto as mentioned above that has its own waste management system. I have yet verify that and would gladly do so soon. Why? Since 2003 under Cruz the former mayor the residents of Guiguinto have been suffering from neglect on the issue of uncollected garbage. It is equally disappointing that the present Administration under Pascual has yet to act on this stinking problem. Worse thing about this situation is that the residents are not only suffering from the filth that blight our surroundings but our lungs too are being exposed to toxic smog brought about by ignorant and selfish residents who just burn their wastes as a means of disposal. How long shall we wait?…till next election?
By the way just a few correction Guiguinto is a municipality, I think you were referring to 14 Barangays not municipalities (3rd paragraph, 2nd line).