ALMOST EVERY night at around 9, a couple with their two young boys in tow are on a bicycle with a sidecar, stopping at Jaime Hernandez Avenue in front of the first gate of University of Nueva Caceres in Naga City. They are a common sight around the place, periodically stopping at piles of trash along the road, and inspecting the entire heap for recyclable items and those that can be turned into compost. This done, they load the dirty treasures into the sidecar and rearrange the trash they do not need into a neat stack before leaving it behind and proceeding to scour the streets for more trash. The couple is among some 70 “waste-picker” volunteers of the Naga City Solid Waste Management Office (SWMO), who have been trained by the city government to help its 27 barangays reduce garbage on the streets. Watch group “These people are mostly former regular scavengers until we detained them for leaving in disarray the garbage piles around Naga,” says Joel Martin, head of the SWMO and the Naga City Motorpool. Martin says the scavengers have been transformed into “responsible” waste-pickers and are now called the “environmental watch group.” The group is composed of poor and homeless people who make a living through salvaging and selling nonbiodegradable trash, such as plastics, to junk shops and making compost fertilizers out of those biodegradable, such as corn husks. Before being registered into the group, its members undergo a weeklong training at the SWMO, where they learn how to recycle garbage and how to restack residual or remaining trash in a cleaner way, Martin reveals. Night workers They are then assigned to areas close to their communities. They are seen usually at night, before the garbage trucks arrive, wearing green and yellow T-shirts. A waste-picker earns an average of P100 a day selling the items collected to recyclers and compost makers. The group also sells to Manila-based recycling establishments and local malls with environment-related projects, according to Martin. “The creation of the group is actually part of the waste diversion goal and waste segregation scheme of the city. So far, coupled with the operation now of some materials recovery facilities, they have been instrumental in decreasing the average of garbage collected per day by the city by more than 50 percent,” he adds. Martin says that even before the SWMO was devolved from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to the city government in January, average daily garbage collection in Naga from January to October last year went down to 57.1 tons—thanks to the waste-pickers program that was started that year. Segregation works This figure was only a dream in 2008 and 2009, when the daily garbage collections were 140-160 tons and 100-120 tons, respectively, he says. Martin also credits the significant decline in collected garbage to the people’s newfound awareness on waste segregation. “Our residents have realized that they could benefit greatly from reusing some of their trash,” Martin says. “I think this is already the result of all our efforts in campaigning for the recycling and reusing of garbage.” He calculates that if Nagueños continue to subtract from their household refuse all the reusable and compostable products, the daily garbage collection may even go down by 47 to 40 percent in the next few months. Martin believes that the stricter monitoring of establishments, particularly food businesses, has helped the SWMO in its waste management campaigns. Materials recovery Lately, he says, many food businesses have almost altogether stopped using Styrofoam and plastic utensils, opting instead for washable plates, utensils and glasses. Another factor that adds to the decline in garbage is the materials recovery facilities or MRCs. The MRCs are common points in villages or places where residents bring their garbage and sort them out, separating the reusable or recyclable ones from the residual wastes which have no use anymore. These residual wastes are the ones that the garbage trucks pick up and take to Balatas Dump in Barangay Balatas on the outskirts. Naga has six functional MRCs in Barangays Sabang, Triangulo, Calauag, Mabolo, Bagumbayan Sur and public market. “We are planning to put MRCs in all barangays of Naga,” Martin says. He acknowledges some problems of disciplining most residents on how to properly dispose of their trash, but he adds that he remains hopeful that more and more people will eventually become concern with environmental protection issues. “As for now, we do our job so we can deliver the best service that we can give.” |
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
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