IN an attempt to control an army of junk shops in Quezon City, local officials have asked more than 700 recyclers to help the city government achieve its “Zero Litter sa QC Project.”
In fact, the Quezon City Environment Protection and Waste Management Department (EPWMD) invited them to attend a six-part forum on recycling and greening that started on August 1 and continued on August 3 and 4.
The next sessions, EPWMD said, will be held on August 8, 10 and 11 at the Bulwagang Amoranto of the Quezon City Hall.
Remelito Hirang, chief of the EPWMD monitoring, inspection and enforcement section, said his office’s record shows only 80 of the more than 700 junk shops in the city are registered. Junk shops are said to be a sunshine industry, particularly in the National Capital Region as more and more people throw more garbage and allow the so-called mangangalakal, or those collecting or buying recyclable materials, to earn more.
Junk collectors also employ young and old alike, with many urban-poor families actually working as mangangalakal in order to survive.
However, since they are part of the informal sector, they do not pay direct taxes to the Quezon City government, but each time they purchase anything, they contribute indirect taxes to the city coffers and the National Treasury.
Quezon City wants to regulate junk shops, which sell their goods to companies that recycle paper, metals, plastic and other goods, and is even mulling over to establish a central recycling facility through the so-called public-private partnership (PPP) scheme, which will collect all the recyclable items accumulated by the mangangalakal.
This issue is crucial to the junkshop owners who have ready buyers for their recyclable goods, with some of them actually being funded by companies to precisely collect recyclable items.
Centralizing collection and recycling would surely be resisted by the individual junk shop owners and the mangangalakal who have their own suki in many communities.
In the forum held on Tuesday, EPWMD said it recognizes the role of formal- and informal-sector recyclers in the overall waste reduction and diversion effort of the city.
The forum aims to enable the recyclers to participate in the environmental management policies, programs and projects, as well as with the social facet of local administration.
Aside from their role in waste management, the recyclers also learned about City Ordinance 2350-2014, also known as The Quezon City Environment Code.
“Napakalaki pala ng sector ng mga recyclers na hindi natin napapansin dito sa Quezon City. Sila ang may malaking participation para pagtagumpayan ng gobyerno ang programa sa waste segregation. We will organize, empower and teach them on how to operate para na rin sa health and sanitation na aspeto. Hindi po natin sila pinagbabawalan, kundi sila po ay ating susuportahan,” Hirang said.
Aside from regulation of junk shops, the city government in a PPP scheme is also planning to build recycling facility where all wastes collected by all junk shops will be recycled.
With Alladin S. Diega