SIYAM NA TULOG NA LANG

SOMETHING SMELLS!

By Alan S. Gensoli

Siyam na tulog na lang, December 5 na. Of course, but that’s not the point. On that day, our city government will begin collecting residual wastes only. Now, that’s the point. The time has come for us to segregate our garbage at home. Question is, how do we do that? 

R.A. 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, is the countrys legal bible on Solid Waste Management (SWM). To implement the law and ensure compliance of LGUs, R.A. 9003 created the National Solid Waste Management Commission, chaired by DENR Sec. Lito Atienza. 

When NSWMC Executive Director Gerardo Calderon visited Bacolod last Nov. 13, he said that the city is now 60% compliant to the “Authority To Close” issued by the DENR. The ATC gives our city government the go-signal to close the existing open dumpsite that was rendered illegal by R.A. 9003 back in 2004. 

As you can imagine, compliance to R.A. 9003 now is long overdue. It cannot be said that the citizens have not been patient enough. What can be said is that the NSWMC has been remiss in its duties to monitor compliance by the LGUs. Sure, better late than never, but why be late in the first place? And so very, very late at that? 

Closing the open dumpsite is just a requirement to the building of a sanitary landfill. Thus, compliance to the ATC is not the same as compliance to R.A. 9003. Putting into proper perspective the statement of Calderon that the Bacolod LGU is now 60% compliant to the ATC, when our government finally reaches 100% compliance to the ATC, it will only be one-third compliant to R.A. 9003. The next one-third will be the successful building of the sanitary landfill according to the strict specifications of the law. The final one-third will be following the strict guidelines for the proper operation of the sanitary landfill, because if we do not follow the guidelines, then the sanitary landfill will be useless. This makes that final one-third a lifelong mission that both government and citizens must collaborate on. 

According to Calderon, 900 LGUs still have not complied with the law (as if that should make us feel good that Bacolod is one of them). Some, says Calderon, have begun SWM in the past but have since reverted back to open dumping of garbage. This is why the final one-third of the work of complying to R.A. 9003 is a lifelong endeavor. Compliance is not assured by the building of a sanitary landfill. If at all, compliance merely begins with the sanitary landfill. Following the guidelines on the proper use of the landfill day after day, after day, is the only way we can guarantee full and final success of SWM. We must not let up. We must all embrace SWM, make it a part of our way of life, and be vigilant about continued government support for it. 

The guidelines for the operation of the sanitary landfill are provided for by R.A. 9003. One of the many directives is that only residual wastes may be dumped in sanitary landfills. It is for this reason that we need to segregate our garbage at home. 

When the Bacolod Anti-Baha Alliance met with DENR Regional Executive Director Lormelyn Claudio on Nov. 3, 2008, she asked us to help the DENR monitor the citys compliance. We accepted. She also asked us to help her disseminate educational information about SWM, particularly about waste segregation. We have started to do that here. I wrote about residual waste on Oct. 27, and then about the Five Rs of SWM, with special emphasis on Rotting, or composting garden waste, last Nov. 10. Yet, when Reg. Exec. Dir. Claudio told us that the city government agreed to begin collecting residual waste on Dec. 5, 2008, so many questions flooded my email and my SMS. Most common were these. 

1. What’s the first thing we need to do as we begin segregating garbage at home? The first thing is garbage characterization. Take a look at the garbage you have everyday, say, for three days or even a week. How much of that are tin cans? Aluminum cans? Bottles? Plastic bottles? Plastic bags? Garden trimmings? Pig slop? Etcetera. Classifying your garbage allows you to know the size of containers you will need for each type. And since for sure you will not be taking trips to the junk shop everyday, you will need containers to hold your segregated garbage until you can bring them to the junk shop or they are picked up by government, in the case of residual waste. Thats the purpose of waste characterization. 

These containers are your very own MRF, or Material Recovery Facility, a fancy name for containers of segregated garbage. By the way, these containers must have secure lids so pets and pests don’t rummage through them. And make sure you rinse the bottles and cans well before depositing them in your MRF bins, just so you don’t stink up your backyard. 

2. How many containers should we have? Well, that depends. If you’re really good, like one friend I know who has advanced into Zero Waste Management, you can have up to nine. Some are fine with four or five. I say, go back to your waste characterization and see how many containers you should have. Having two collecting bins, one for “Madunot” and another for “Indi Madunot”, will not be enough. The “Madunot” bin will contain your compostable garden trimmings, which shouldn’t be there, because they should be in your compost pit rotting away. A “Madunot” bin is only practical in public areas because government needs to hold compostable garbage until these can be picked up and delivered to a composting center. But there is no need for a “Madunot” bin in your home; what you need is a composting pit. 

Meanwhile, the “Indi Madunot” bin will contain your recyclables, reusables, hazardous waste, and residual waste, which must be further segregated as provided for by law. Read on. 

3. What are recyclables? These are product packaging that can be recycled into either the same packaging or for some new use. It may not have occurred to you, but we have been recycling since the time of the town crier crying out “botelya papel”. We are not new to recycling at all. We have been returning softdrink bottles to get back deposit money, returning our five-gallon mineral water containers, buying used sacks, old tires and car batteries, used large pails of lard available from bakeries (perfect to use for MRF bins), tarpauline billboards for roofing, newspaper drives we learned about in Grade 1, even buying ukay-ukay clothes, even reheating leftover food for dinner and then finally sending it out as pig slop. These practices prove that we will not mind the task of recycling, for so long as we get some value for them. And the junk shops will give us value for them, in the form of cash. 

To know what product packaging in your garbage mix is recyclable, check with your nearest junk shop and ask what they buy back. Whatever the junk shop buys is recyclable. The junk shop should be able to provide you with a price list. The Bacolod Anti-Baha Alliance got hold of one such price list which includes plastic cups at P10/kg., mineral water bottles at P20/kg, tin cans (canned food) at P3.50/kg., aluminum cans (canned drinks) at P55 to P60/kg., even pig slop at P40/drum. There’s money in garbage! 

If you have volume, the junk shop might even offer to pick up. This is applicable to subdivisions where home owners decide to put their junk together in a large MRF, like an open lot, and sales from their junk go to the home owners’ association fund. Some subdivisions in Bacolod have, in fact, started this. This could be a good model for puroks and barangays. 

4. What are reusables? These are packaging that you will reuse, like mayonnaise jars that you might reuse to contain other food, such as pickled fruits and veggies. 

But if you don’t think you will reuse a used packaging right away, sell it as recyclable material. It’s always easier to sell than to be storing packaging for future use because we might end up not using it after all. We need to make segregation EASY so that we will do it. 

If it is hard, chances are, we will not segregate.

And that’s that for today. Tomorrow, I will write about compostables, household hazardous waste, residual waste, and what you can do with styro and plastic bags. Isn’t garbage segregation fun? See you tomorrow.*(to be continued)