Breakthroughs In Solid Waste Management

Solid waste management whose importance is directly related to public health, resource management and utilization, and maintaining a clean environment, is necessary in ensuring human development. Solid waste management benefits the population in many ways. The Philippine has no effective waste management system since then, set off a kind of global chain reaction on the need for ways to understand and benchmark waste management systems in low and middle income countries. Waste segregation in the Philippines household level is not widely practiced and waste recycling is minimal.

The Municipality of Los Baños, Laguna, and Barangay Bagumbuhay of Quezon City were able to address the problem in solid waste management strategy with relatively low cost but with a high level of efficiency in a low technology solution.

I think the education driven by barangay officials have mobilizing their constituents to make recovery facilities or areas for recycling household waste and a budget to teach residents about simple segregation management are the effective ways to start on barangay level.

It is possible to achieve significant positive results with limited budgets owing to very strong and dedicated barangay management, enthusiastic staff, and with time relatively cooperative inhabitants, build the right attitudes and discipline among members of the community towards environmental awareness through seminars, workshops, and echo training seminars. The raised consciousness is often the start of the empowerment process and in order to achieve this people need to come together to discuss and share experiences. When people get aware of their situation and begin to act coordinated to change it. The project has raised the participants’ consciousness about Solid Waste Management which is then the base for actions. Work hand and hand with the support of the local government unit in the implementation of the solid waste activities.

The Municipality of Los Baños, Laguna, and Barangay Bagumbuhay of Quezon City are model rural area and urban area. It should be adapted to all the city and municipality in the country. Their effective way in solid waste management must be promoted by the government and the local government unit for the public awareness of their obligation and responsibility in their community.

The project has managed to reduce the number of truck loads bringing residual waste to dumpsite and conversion of waste into usable materials that can be sold and earned an income as their livelihood which a great impact to them especially those unemployed members of the community and developed a sense of pride. A strong collaboration and creation of Ecological Waste Processing Center (EWPC), Municipal Solid Waste Management Board and the Anti-littering Task Force, The Los Baños Solid Waste Organization (LB-SWO), Information, Education, and Communication (IEC), and the People’s Organization (PO) among the different sectors of the community that helped enhance their capacity in the implementation. The effects are healthier and cleaner community.

In other cities, past efforts in promote waste segregation have failed despite the issuance of city ordinances providing for sanctions and penalties for non-compliance. Some reasons that have been cited for the non-compliance include: indifference of local residents to participate in community waste management-related activities, local government collection services’ non-allowance for segregated waste collection, residents’ attitude that government has the sole responsibility over garbage management and lack of information and education campaigns.

To address the tremendous increase in population would be huge problem in the future in solid waste management in the country. The government should act on this, increase the budget on solid waste management to adopt a comprehensive ecological solid waste management program especially in the key cities were populated area. New dumpsites systems build into ecological waste processing systems that would segregate the different types of waste, on recycling, resource recovery, reuse and composting.

I believe it can also apply to other cities and municipalities’ area in the Philippines with a strong political will of the leaders plays important role to successfully implement the solid waste management programs or other programs for the need of the people in the community.

I’ve learned also good governance as characterized by transparent and participatory decision making and community mobilization can be an effective means to achieve goals despite the lack of financial and technical resources.