JOSHUA makes time for waste. Every morning, the 13-year-old high-school freshman waits in front of their house to make sure kitchen waste is picked up by backyard hog raisers making the rounds in their small village in Dasmariñas, Cavite, to collect excess food.
Sometimes, he lamented, collectors refuse to take their kitchen waste because it also contains spoiled food.
“I could have buried it, but there’s no open space left in our house. Last time, nobody picked up our kitchen waste. A stray cat scattered it all over. It stinks and I had to clean it up,” he said.
Every Saturday, he also waits for the garbage collector to hand over their garbage bag. He is unaware if there is a materials recovery facility (MRF) in their village.
It has also been his duty to dispose of the garbage every day, but not with a small reward. He gets to sell empty bottles, newspapers and plastic containers to a nearby junk shop for extra cash.
Joshua’s parents are teaching him proper waste segregation—something that his family has been practicing to reduce the garbage the household produces daily.
A looming garbage crisis
IN the Philippines, with a population of over 100 million and still growing, solid waste management—or the lack of it—is a very serious health and environmental issue.
Many highly urbanized areas are now experiencing serious environmental and health problems brought about by improper solid waste management practices.
The illegal operation of open dumps exposes communities to serious health hazards, while uncollected waste, which comprises about 20 percent of total waste generated, ends up in open spaces and often finds its way in waterways.
The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) hauls tons of waste that clogs canals and creeks in Metro Manila to prevent flooding, a perennial problem in low-lying areas during heavy rains.
The National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC), an interagency body created by virtue of Republic Act (RA) 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, estimates that the Philippines produces 40,000 tons of garbage every day, or 14.6 million tons a year.
The computation is based on the weighted average of 0.4 kilograms per capita per day (kg/cap/d), the amount of waste every Filipino produces on a daily average.
Based on a projected population growth, annual waste generation in the Philippines will reach 16.63 million tons by 2020.
Poor solid waste management leads to environmental pollution—air, soil and water—that exposes people to potential environmental and associated health risks.
Wasted solution?
REPUBLIC Act 9003 provides the legal framework for a systematic, comprehensive and ecological solid waste management program to ensure the protection of public health and the environment.
The law underscores the need to create institutional mechanisms and incentives, as well as imposes penalties for violation of the law.
The enactment of RA 9003 more than 25 years ago is seen as the ultimate solution to the country’s looming garbage crisis. The law provides for the formulation of a 10-year management plan, promotion of proper ecological solid waste management practice through segregation at source, recycling and repurposing, to reduce the volume of waste, for disposal to a sanitary landfill.
However, the full implementation of the law, particularly its provision on proper waste segregation, recycling, composting and disposal, remains to be seen.
The NSWMC blames the looming garbage crisis in the Philippines largely on the failure of local government units (LGUs) to enforce the law. The NSWMC said most LGUs are reluctant to set aside local funds for proper ecological solid waste management in their respective towns.
According to Ely Ildefonso, executive director of the NSWMC secretariat, lack of skills or know-how, as well as financial resources to implement RA 9003, should not be an excuse. He added that the NSWMC has been offering LGUs both technical and financial assistance ever since the law was enacted.
“They are not providing fund for solid waste management because it is not really their priority,” he noted.
LGUs can also solicit support from foreign financing institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for various programs related to ecological solid waste management.
These NGOs promote environment-friendly solutions, like waste reduction, recycling, upcycling and repurposing. However, their efforts have achieved little success on account of people’s unhealthy lifestyle, lack of interest or sheer apathy.
Still a priority
WASTE-to-energy (WTE) is described by environmental groups as a quick fix, but an unsustainable and problematic solution.
While the WTE remains an option for the government, the NSWMC considers the three R’s—reduce, reuse and recycle—as a priority program.
“Our priority is to recover all recyclable waste. This means recycling, then composting,” Ildefonso said. “But to do that, we have to do segregation at source.”
If properly implemented, recycling and composting can reduce waste generation by up to 80 percent, leaving only the remaining 20 percent residual and special waste for disposal or for conversion through waste-to-energy or other uses, such as for construction material.
According to Ildefonso, there are four types of waste—the recyclable, the biodegradable, the residuals and the special waste.
The NSWMC estimates 25 percent of waste on the average is recyclable, 50 percent is biodegradables and 20 percent is residual. The agency estimates that 5 percent is special waste or toxic and hazardous waste.
Recyclables can be repurposed or sold as junks for recycling.
Ildefonso said biodegradables—mostly kitchen waste—can be disposed of through composting. Agricultural waste, which is also biodegradable, can be turned into organic fertilizer.
Ironically, not all LGUs, including those in rural areas, provide areas for proper composting of biodegradable waste, he said.
AIDS syndrome
ILDEFONSO said the government is not solely to be blamed for the garbage pileup. Surely, the daunting task of addressing such problem is not the government’s alone, he added.
“Filipinos are afflicted with AIDS.”
Ildefonso explains AIDS as the acronym of Apathy, Ignorance, Discipline and Selfishness, things ail Filipinos have when dealing with the garbage problem.
“Many Filipinos do not really care. They are ignorant. They lack discipline and they are selfish when it comes to helping their community,” Ildefonso said.
He said a lifestyle change is necessary to effectively reduce waste.
“When Filipinos are in other countries, they are disciplined; they follow the law. Back here, there’s apathy: Walang pakialam [They don’t care],” he lamented.
Open dumps
FORMER Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez had wanted to shut down open dumps, starting with those she said may potentially contaminate the country’s freshwater resources. Lopez cited the Payatas Sanitary Landfill, which she said may affect the water supply in La Mesa Dam. The dam supplies potable water to more than 12 million Metro Manila residents.
Currently, the NSWMC is targeting to close this year a total of 95 open dumps in the Manila Bay region, which encompasses the National Capital Region, Region 3 and Region 4A. Outside the Manila Bay region, more than 300 open dumps need to be closed or converted into sanitary landfills, the NSWMC said.
However, Ildefonso said an underlying problem in closing open dumps is the failure of LGUs to establish a sanitary landfill.
In Metro Manila and other urban centers like Metro Cebu and Metro Davao, lack of suitable space for a sanitary landfill is a major problem.
“We do not have much space for landfills. That’s the problem,” he said.
Ildefonso said only 15 percent of the total 1,634 LGUs nationwide have landfills, underscoring the need to establish more or introduce alternative technologies for effective waste disposal.
As mandated by RA 9003, LGUs are supposed to initiate action shutdown, or convert open dumps into sanitary landfill. Doing so, however, requires LGUs to spend more, especially for hauling and disposal.
WTE solution, opposition
WITH the failure of LGUs to implement proper waste segregation, recycling and composting, the WTE solution to the garbage problem has become more attractive.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is also eyeing the rollout of several waste-to-energy projects in partnership with the private sector and the government of Japan.
With a guideline that would allow the use of appropriate technologies in place, Ildefonso said potential investors from European countries, South Korea, Japan, Australia, the United States and China are looking at the Philippines for possible WTE ventures.
The guideline adopting any technology for WTE will be allowed with certain standards and according to existing laws. WTE technologies do not also necessarily involve incineration and would even reduce the country’s greenhouse-gas emission, while effectively reducing up to 95 percent the volume of waste generated.
Among the WTE technologies allowed under the guideline are gasification, gyrolysis, bioreactor, biomethanation, hydrolysis, pyrolytic-gasification, plasma and other thermal processes—technologies not requiring the use of incinerators.
The WTE scheme has been the subject of debate because of the Clean Air Act, a law which prohibits open burning and use of incineration technologies. But with no concrete solution in sight, the government is taking the bold move to go for the so-called no-burn WTE option.
“This is where waste-to-energy technology comes in,” Ildefonso said.
President Duterte has issued a public pronouncement backing WTE technologies to address the country’s garbage problem. Some LGUs are also already venturing into WTE schemes through public-private partnerships.
The DENR is open to the idea of establishing WTE facilities—first to address the garbage woes, and second to boost power supply and provide cheap electricity to host communities.
According to Ildefonso, the latest WTE project that recently became operational includes two in Nueva Ecija, which has a capacity of generating 40 megawatts.
But environmental groups contend that WTE is just “a sexy title” for burning waste through incineration.
“WTE goes against the very purpose of the Clean Air Act, which seeks to curb pollution. [WTE] runs against the zero-waste vision of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, encouraging more waste generation rather than recycling, thus promoting a culture of overconsumption,” Abigail Aguilar, detox campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia-Philippines, said. “We should instead promote practice of reduction, segregation at source, recycling and reuse. The government should couple this with renewable-energy solutions, which are cleaner and more viable.”
QC case
REPORTS have said the 38-member Quezon City (QC) Council gave Mayor Herbert Bautista the authority to forge a joint-venture agreement with the private sector for the development of the city’s own WTE plant.
Bautista earlier said such move helps the city avert a possible crisis in waste management with the impending closure of the landfill facility in Payatas in three years. The city government expects to earn additional revenue if the power or electricity generated from the soon-to-be-developed WTE facility is sold to electric companies, the mayor has said.
The WTE facility is expected to generate 30 megawatts to 35 megawatts of electricity, according to Bautista. He added that the savings derived from the sale of the power or electricity will be used to fund the construction of additional school buildings, health centers, hospitals and multipurpose halls.
The QC government spends P1 billion annually for solid waste management. The money, Bautista said, goes to hauling services, post-closure care and maintenance of the Payatas controlled disposal facility, special operations and toxic/hazardous waste collection, treatment and disposal.
Legal hurdles
GREEN groups, however, are tepid with the WTE as a solution to the garbage crisis. Some groups allege the QC WTE project violates existing environmental laws, such as RA 9003 and RA 8741 (Clean Air Act).
Both landmark laws ban incineration, while RA 9003 requires waste segregation at source, door-to-door waste collection and increased recycling and composting.
In the case of QC, there is not enough waste to fuel the facility, some of the groups claim. To note, Quezon City generates about 2,000 to 3,000 tons of garbage daily.
To fulfill the waste requirement under the joint-venture agreement, the QC government will likely have to import waste from neighboring cities and burn mixed waste. Doing so will violate the segregation provision of RA 9003, Sonia Mendoza, chairman of Mother Earth Foundation Inc., was quoted in a statement as saying.
“This project will seriously undermine ecological solid waste management as it will encourage people to produce more waste instead of reducing waste,” Mendoza said.
Unsustainable
ANNE Larracas, managing director of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, said a high percentage of waste produced in QC is organic or biodegradable, which has low energy content.
“This means that the current waste composition is highly unsuitable for burning, and additional fuel will have to be added to increase the efficiency of burning waste,” Larracas said. “This will lead to burning even recyclable waste with high calorific value, such as paper and plastics, in order to produce the purported energy generation of such facility.”
She added that many QC barangays already have good waste-management programs.
“Instead of turning to WTE technologies, QC can actually replicate the programs in these barangays. These programs are truly sustainable, ecological and cost effective,” Larracas added. “By employing these ecological programs, millions of pesos are saved from tipping and collection and transportation fees. Resource recovery is also more climate-friendly than trying to produce energy from WTE incinerators.”
Carrot and stick
TO encourage LGUs to enforce RA 9003, the NSWMC provides technical and financial support in the crafting of solid waste management plans.
According to Ildefonso, the support includes providing seminars and training to boost LGUs’ capacity in the conduct of waste analysis and characterization studies (Wacs). The Wacs can help LGUs come up with informed decisions as to how to properly manage waste, he added.
Erring LGUs, on the other hand, face possible administrative and criminal charges, as a consequence of their inaction.
As of last year, the NSWMC has filed cases against 50 LGUs. Another 154 LGUs are facing the same consequences, according to Ildefonso.
RA 9003 mandates LGUs to implement proper waste segregation, composting and disposal. Among its responsibilities is to establish an MRF in every barangay and close all open dumps within their jurisdiction.
However, Ildefonso said rapid urbanization may eventually worsen the problem. This is where LGUs must take the lead in enforcing ecological solid waste management.
“It is important that LGUs start to address the garbage problem seriously. They should come up with a solid waste management plan, appoint an environment and natural resources officer who will focus on environmental issues like garbage, and set aside budget for solid waste management,” he said.
Ildefonso added the NSWMC will continue to give LGUs the carrot—help them by providing the necessary support—but will also be carrying a big stick—by filing appropriate cases against erring local officials for failure to enforce the garbage law.
Image credits: Tonyoquias | Dreamstime.com