‘More waste is generated when we drink three-in-one coffee or canned soda, when we snack on chips and nuts, eat from paper (but nevertheless plastic-laminated) plates.’
MANILA’s residents woke up last week to a potential garbage crisis following the Metro Manila Development Authority’s communication — transmitted by letter to Mayor Francisco Domagoso the day before, a Sunday — of the impending closure of the Navotas landfill the next day, Tuesday, and to redirect waste to the San Mateo landfill.
Mayor “Isko” responded by urging residents not to take out their trash unless garbage trucks have arrived. The San Mateo alternative is smaller than Navotas, is three times farther, and hence will cost more.
Meanwhile, the people of San Mateo, led by Mayor Bartolome Rivera Jr., aren’t exactly excited about becoming the next Smokey Mountain, that monumental heap of shame that the government was forced to close 30 years ago.
MMDA’s action is consistent with Republic Act No. 9003 (the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act) which called for the phaseout and eventual closure of existing landfills 18 months from its effectivity — 25 years later.
It appears that City Hall was caught flatfooted with the MMDA notice. The decision to hire more trucks will not change the fact that Manilans, as well as their neighbors, will continue producing waste that will outlive all of us. One thing is for sure, the urban garbage issue did not start yesterday.
Actually, RA 9003 has already identified strategies. The first, found in Section 2(c), is preventive, in the form of waste avoidance and volume reduction. In other words, avoiding the production and consumption of items that normally end up in landfills: sachet packaging, bottles of the glass and PET varieties, single-use plastics and the like. This is a vicious cycle of supply and demand. Manufacturers will continue making and using these items for as long as there is consumer demand.
Observe how much sando plastic bags are used when you buy even just a kilo of meat. More waste is generated when we drink three-in-one coffee or canned soda, when we snack on chips and nuts, eat from paper (but nevertheless plastic-laminated) plates. Some eateries replace the typical spoons and forks with disposable plastic gloves.
The second strategy, in Section 2(d), is segregation, collection and recycling. Acknowledging the presence of trash, this approach focuses on preventing the generated waste from reaching the landfills or the oceans. This is achievable, but most recycling operations require that the items be clean and dry. Filipinos must therefore learn to wash — with soap and water — chip bags, soft-drink bottles, sardine cans, and cooking-oil cartons and dry them. This takes time and entails cost, but is necessary.
Next is segregating plastics, paper, glass, and cans. Not to mention food waste, which will go a separate way through another process.
Arrangements will have to be made with resource-recovery companies to collect what they call “donations” from residents. Where I live, curbside recycling has been taking place once a month for over a year. In that period we were able to divert 12.5 tonnes (or 12,500 kilos) from going to landfills.
Our local expert, who happens to be the youngest member of my family, refuses to turn over clean, dry and segregated trash to junk shops or the regular garbage crews because, she claims, you never know where it will end up. Legitimate resource-recovery firms assure you that the items you give them will go to the proper recyclers or composters and not back to nature.
Back to food waste. Thankfully, there is a technology that is available both in principle and in practice. Anaerobic decomposition or digestion, defined as a process through which “bacteria break down organic matter in the absence of oxygen,” allows the conversion of food waste, animal manure, fats and oils into fuel for homes and vehicles. The process can also turn out digestates that make good fertilizers, among others.
It might be difficult to have backyard or cottage-industry anaerobic digestion operations at home. Fortunately, there are “waste-to-energy” (easier to pronounce than anaerobic digestion) companies ready to turn your “kanin baboy” into diesel.
Local government units, which the law bestows with the primary enforcement and responsibility of solid waste management, should start looking beyond landfills. Segregation is already working wonders in small towns, like Bayawan, Negros Oriental (population 126,744), which claims to be the country’s cleanest city and boasts of the cleanest landfill.
There is hope, but we need to make hard and definite decisions.
