Villar: Proper waste management should be the norm in the ‘new normal’
EXPERTS CITE CONTINUITY OF RECYCLING EFFORTS IS IMPORTANT DURING AND AFTER THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
SENATOR Cynthia Villar, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, said the ongoing pandemic due to the coronavirus has shown that there is really a direct link between environment or nature and the spread of diseases. The most critical of which is in protection of wildlife habitats and solid waste management.
She has earlier called the public’s attention on how the protection habitats and biodiversity can prevent another pandemic. Thus, there should be stricter implementation of environmental laws especially on protected areas.
“It is not only destruction of natural habitats that can cause the spread of infectious and zoonotic diseases, improperly disposed wastes are causes of infection and contamination. So, we should to take proper waste disposal and management even more seriously,” said Villar, who has established programs and projects that protect the environment since she was a congresswoman during the early 2000s.
She spent nine years of her public life, as a congresswoman from 2001 to 2010, in saving the Las Piñas-Zapote River. It even won for her the 2011 United Nations (UN) Water for Life Best Water Management Practices. Her very popular livelihood projects, which have been duplicated nationwide, are a result that river rehabilitation project. That started her advocacy to promote proper waste management until now as a senator.
“We should encourage Filipinos to be responsible stewards of the environment. There should be a shared responsibility among us when it comes to waste management. There is no exception because we all generate wastes,” said Villar.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “If solid waste is not dealt with quickly, serious health risks will develop which will further demoralize the community already traumatized by the emergency”. Moreover, the International Solid Waste Association cites that “Waste Management is one of the most important sanitary barriers to prevent dissemination ofillnesses and diseases.”
“Whether there is a community quarantine/lockdown or not, proper waste management is important. It becomes even more crucial now because some waste collection activities and services were disrupted. But the amount of wastes produced, especially in households, continues to increase,” cited Villar, who has established projects that help process solid wastes innovatively and sustainably.
The raw materials used in Villar’s livelihood projects are from wastes. These are water hyacinths for the waterlily handicraft-weaving enterprise and the handmade paper factory; waste coconut husks for the coconet-weaving enterprise and the charcoalmaking factory; kitchen and garden wastes for the organic fertilizer composting facility; and plastic wastes for the waste plastic recycling factory that produces school chairs. The senator has set up over 3,000 livelihood projects nationwide.
Villar believes that there should be greater private sector and public participation in the development waste management programs. Her projects are implemented by the Villar Social Institute for Poverty Alleviation and Governance or Villar SIPAG. It has established barangaybased livelihood enterprises that are models of proper waste management and good examples of how garbage can be turned into useful endproducts.
The coconet weaving enterprises turn coconut husks that clog rivers and waterways into materials as such as coconets, which are used as riprap materials in construction projects to prevent soil erosion. “Initially, coconets are the only products, but we also discovered that we can also use the coco dusts to produce organic fertilizers and the enterprise has also started making charcoal brisquettes out of them,” cited Villar.
The workers extract fiber and coco peat from the waste coco husks using a decorticating machine. The fiber is used for making coconet and the coco dusts are mixed with household wastes to make organic fertilizers that are distributed for free to farmers and urban gardeners.
A decorticating machine can extract fiber and dust from up to 8,000 waste coconut husks daily . The fibers are then made into twines by women workers. Each twine is eight meters long. Another group of workers
“WHETHER THERE IS A COMMUNITY QUARANTINE/ LOCKDOWN OR NOT, PROPER WASTE MANAGEMENT IS IMPORTANT. IT BECOMES EVEN MORE CRUCIAL NOW BECAUSE SOME WASTE COLLECTION ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES WERE DISRUPTED. BUT THE AMOUNT OF WASTES PRODUCED, ESPECIALLY IN HOUSEHOLDS, CONTINUES TO INCREASE,” CITED VILLAR,
weave the loom of twines. The twiners and weavers earn P3,000 to P13,000 a month on piece work basis. Vista Land is the biggest buyer of coconets, which is priced P2,500 per roll. The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) is giving out decorticating machines as one of their programs.
There is also a composting facility set up by Villar that produces compost organic fertilizer, the use of which is environment-friendly since it keeps the soil healthy. It is also the first step in organic farming. The facility uses two methods — rotary composting and vermicomposting.
“We must remember that 95 percent of our food comes from the soil. People can help by simply bringing nutrients back to the soil by composting and using organic fertilizer. We should compost our kitchen and garden wastes,” said Villar.
The intensive and excessive use of chemical fertilizers and insecticides cause damages to crops, decrease crop production and result to loss of soil fertility. In fact, soil degradation in the country has reached 38 percent.
Villar facilitated the establishment of composting centers in barangays and she facilitated the collection of kitchen at garden wastes in the households to be brought to the composting facility. It now has 80 composters utilized by 80,000 households.
She is giving out seeds with organic fertilizers from these composting facilities to those establishing urban gardens. She has also worked with the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) in providing Small Scale Composting Facilities (SSCFs) to farmer-beneficiaries in various parts of the country, so they can produce their own organic fertilizer.
Villar also addressed the worsening problem of plastic pollution by recycling plastic wastes, which the UN has in fact called a “planetary crisis.” Based on a University of Georgia study, the Philippines ranked, next to China and Indonesia (among 192 countries surveyed), in terms of volume of plastic wastes produced by the population. Thus, efforts to reduce or eliminate plastic wastes are very important and crucial.
The senator, through Villar SIPAG, put up a Waste Plastic Recycling Factory in 2013 in Barangay Ilaya, Las Piñas City. It converts waste plastics into chairs, thus it helps solve another perennial problem — lack of school chairs.
One school chair can be produced out of 20 kilos of waste plastics such as sachets and wrappers. It takes less than 30 minutes to produce a chair. Monthly production is around 1,100 plastic chairs. Since 2013, the Las Piñas factory has produced over 30,000 chairs, which are ditributed for free to various public schools all over the country.
In 2017, two other factories have been set up by Villar SIPAG in Iloilo and Cagayan de Oro cities to cover the Visayas and Mindanao regions. Both factories can produce 300 plastic chairs per month.
Over the years, Villar’s waste management initiatives have inspired other organizations and LGUs to duplicate its initiatives. Among which is the Philippine Alliance for Recycling & Materials Sustainability (PARMS) and the City of Parañaque. They also established a plastics recycling factory similar to Villar SIPAG’s.
Solid wastes experts such as ISWA said ensuring the continuity of recycling efforts are important during and after the COVID-19 pandemic because if households and businesses stop handling recyclables, “the overall waste system will be saddled with between 30 and 50 percent more materials and there is a risk of system failure.” It warned that “if any authority call a halt to all recycling collection during the crisis, the message to citizens will be that it is not important.”
Villar also emphasized that environmental protection, particularly proper waste disposal and handling, is very important with or without a pandemic. She cited that in the new normal, it should be as normal as hand-washing and wearing face masks.