Teresa:waste management model

Environment:
Teresa: Waste management model

It was in 2001 when his wife, Josefina, was first diagnosed with colon cancer that now Teresa Mayor Rodel “Boy” dela Cruz started to realize the precious cost of a better environment.
Doctors advised his wife to shift to the intake of chemical-free, organically grown food in order to eliminate the free radicals that have been borne by her body’s potential exposure to pollution or toxic substances.
“After the operation, I knew what to do. We would go to Katipunan to buy organic food. It was very expensive, so I thought, ‘Why can’t we produce it on our own?’” said dela Cruz. Organic food can be produced by making sure only organic pesticides and organic fertilizers (that come from biodegradable and other organic waste like chicken manure) are applied to crops to enhance yield.
Dela Cruz’s initial objective was only to produce organic food out of compost fertilizer production.
But a more encompassing aim for a healthful living and pollution-free environment induced him to make this the start of a lifelong devotion to the proper management of solid waste.
Incidentally, year 2001 was the year that Republic Act (RA) 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act was ratified.
As he worked his way through government since he was elected in the municipal leadership in 2002, Dela Cruz began laboring toward the implementation of RA 9003.
That desire has led Teresa, a Rizal town, to emerge as the most admired Philippine town when it comes to solid waste management.
“We wanted to follow the law. Our garbage situation before was like that in Smokey Mountain . But we had to solve the problem because this has a big effect on our people’s health,” he said.
It was a program, now called Integrated Solid Waste Management Facility (ISWMF), that turned out to generate many varied jobs from waste collection, composting, organic vegetable production, and hollow block and brick-making, handicrafts, and paper charcoal-making.
The law dictates waste has to be sorted at source, or from the household level– biodegradables (fruits, vegetables, leftover food) away from the non-biodegradable or recyclables (cans, plastics). Teresa’s leadership knew this task involved a lot of hardwork.
“We went from house to house, urging people to do waste segregation,” he said. Waste segregation is obviously critical.
Biodegradable waste immediately has to be taken away for composting since this is the source of foul, stinking odor. Biodegradable waste normally takes up a big chunk of 50 percent of household waste. Once it is secluded, the recyclables can be stored without odor and re-formed into new use.
To turn biodegradable waste into compost fertilizers, the municipality at first was buying enzymes from the Bureau of Soils and Water Management.
Enzymes help speed up bacterial growth to accelerate biodegradable waste decomposition. The town’s municipal agriculturists later produced the enzymes—with a mixture of muscovado sugar, rice, and other ingredients prepared in a dark place– on their own in order to cut costs.
Instead of the lengthy one month for waste to degrade, waste decomposition is shortened to just one week with the Teresa-produced enzyme and other facilities that the town later acquired.
Teresa residents earn a net of P590 per day from production of composts at 10 bags per day.
Employment at this production size is two persons per day at P203 daily wage.
Sold at only P120 per 50-kilo bag, the composts are a big bargain for farmers compared to the P250 to P350 in the market. The composts have become highly in-demand, although the town prioritizes its sale to Teresa farmers.
The production of composts led Teresa to keep a 5,000-square meter government-owned organic vegetable garden that grows high value crops, primarily honeydew melon. Other crops are a Chinese kangkong variety that’s being bought by Chow King, okra, string bean, tomato, radish, patola, and squash.

Crop rotation is practiced in the farm to promote soil nutrient regeneration. Farmers go through a Farmers Field School in order to learn how to grow crops well using organic agriculture.

With organic fertilization technology, farmers can get a yield higher by perhaps 30 – 100% more from the high value crops.

The vegetables, upon harvest, are sold through a fair at the town center, generating income for the municipality and savings for consumers.

Another source of income from the ISWMF was paper charcoal used as alternative for woodfuel.

The town implemented this paper charcoal-making project, which comes from compacting water-soaked cut-out papers in a paper charcoal machine, after Marlon F. Pielago, Teresa environmental management specialist, learned this cost-saving know-how from Negros.

Teresa’s women likewise earns from making dolls, home decors, and other handicrafts from corn husks.

Surprisingly, Teresa never really had a big, impressive budget for solid waste management. It is a third class municipality that earns around P70 million yearly.

It initially spent just around P100,000 for the project.

“Solid waste management in Teresa is unique. There wasn’t a big (internally-generated) allotted budget. The driving force was the desire of the leaders to fix the problem,” said Pielago.

In 2004, Teresa purchased a P250,000 pulverizing machine for the residuals (plastic, leather, foam) which were mixed with hollow-blocks at a 2 – 10 % rate, saving costs and also creating livelihood. Teresa must have been the first town to purchase such equipment. It wasn’t hard for it to invest in the machine knowing that it would be useful for generating income from a small scale brick and hollow block-making industry.

The zigzag bricks were sold at P7.50 per piece; the six-inch hollow blocks at P8 per piece.

“There’s a bigger demand compared to the supply,” said Dela Cruz.
It was specially attractive as the hollow block mix got approval for acceptable tensile strength from government.

The income from it may not be totally big for the likewise small town of Teresa. A 350-piece brick production brings a net revenue of P1,709 daily or a yearly P513,000 from 300 days given regularity of production. But ISWMF’s value must be big enough if taken from the backdrop of polluted environment’s hazardous effects to human health.

“The benefits of a good solid waste management program is un-quantifiable,” said Pielago.

One success key for the town was their collaboration with the women.
The town leaders united into just one solid team five women’s group from the

Teresa Ladies Association, Teresa Women’s Club, Day Care Workers, Baranggay Health Workers, and Rural Improvement Club.
That was also an effort brought about by the town’s first lady, who by the way, has been treated from her illness.

Of course, anywhere one went, even in Teresa, there were ‘Pilosopong Tasyos,’ people who would reason out for keeping with the status quo, according to Pielago. But the hurdles were a natural thing to anyone who sees a long-term goal.

“We went through all the trials. There were people who would intentionally insult you by throwing their waste anywhere. But I took all of those. Of course there are returns to these efforts,” said dela Cruz.

Companies in Teresa supported the program, realizing this complies with the law.

These private sector cooperators were the Teresa Farms that supplied bamboo for fencing the town’s Material Recovery Facility; livestock farms Coral Farm, Acme Farm, Foremost Farms, and Universal Robina Farm; Republic Cement which supplies 20 cement bags monthly for the hollow block-making livelihood program; Teresa Marble which donated bins and tarpaulins for information campaign; and tile grout-maker ABC Philippines which provided the salary of the town’s “Ecoboys” for the first six months of operations.

The productive interaction between the private sector and the government has later attracted a major support for the project.

This was the P8.17 million Laguna de Bay Institutional Strengthening and Community Participation Project (Liscop) of which P3.27 million was a grant from the World Bank and P3.68 million was loan. Liscop was a project Teresa shared with other Rizal and Laguna towns.

The ISWMF included a 10 x 16-meter Hazardous Waste Management Facility, 804,060, which encapsulates hazardous waste in cement; sorting/shredding area for hollow block manufacturing, P1.35 million; office building, P586,942; and composting shed, P567,445, which includes a bio-reactor designed by the Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI), a mechanical composter, and sifter and grader to produce organic fertilizer.

With its facilities’ success, the ISWMF became a program that made Teresa a leader from the rest.

“We’re inclined to inspire other LGUs (local government units) because we saw the extent of the problem from the beginning and found the means to do it even without outside funding yet,” said Pielago.

Teresa is even anticipating a new grant for certificate of emission reduction or “carbon credits” from the Clean Development Mechanism which may generate an income from its non-emission of 31 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent yearly.

Dela Cruz admits the town does not have a “zero-waste” status.

“We’re not totally zero-waste. We have mixed waste. We still have scavengers. We agreed with DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) not to drive them away, or we would be violating human rights. These scavengers are helping us sort our waste, and we pay them for that,” said Dela Cruz.

The municipal government pays them P3 to P5 per sack, depending on the nature of the waste.

The town traditionally had 5.7 metric tons (MT) of waste generated per day.
After two years of implementation of the solid waste management program (SWMP) since 2004, volume was immediately cut by 38 percent.
But almost all its waste are now turned into something useful.

The hazardous waste like syringe, used oil, bulbs, and batteries are collected and disposed in a prescribed manner by experts. The residuals are being sold to junk shops or transported by haulers and traders to recycling facilities.

The effectiveness of Teresa’s solid waste management facility would also have diminished if not for the Municipal Solid Waste Management Board (MSWMB), composed of representatives from government, private sector, and non-government organizations.

The MSWMB monitors the program implementation from waste segregation at household up to the disposal of the residuals and hazardous waste.

A contest also recognized achiever-baranggays at the end of the year with a P10,000 cash prize and certificate.

The SWMP has earned for Teresa the “Dangal ng Lawa” award from the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) and a recognition from the DENR’s National Solid Waste Management Council.

More than the recognition, the Teresa leadership thinks it is the new values—cooperation, hardwork– that have been imbibed by the town citizenry that are really more important in this program.

Dela Cruz himself found fulfillment from his own benefit in the program, aside from primarily helping his wife recover from a serious illness.

“I was able to invent new recipes like mixing patola and malunggay with noodles that are delicious even without vetsin which is barred in our home.”