Environmental Issues

The Philippines is a developing country.  As such, Solid Waste Management (SWM) is one of the leading problems that have to be addressed with utmost priority and urgency.  Quezon City is part of Metro Manila, and is one of the major cities in the Philippines composed of 142 barangays (smallest unit of local governance).  Quezon City, or QC as we will be referring to throughout this paper, has been awarded as the 2nd cleanest and greenest city of the Philippines by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

It is worth mentioning that during typhoon Ondoy in September 2009, when the whole of Metro Manila was declared under a state of calamity, one of the hardest hit areas of QC was Barangay Sangandaan.  Squatter shanties situated beside creeks were thoroughly washed out and flood waters reached 4-5 feet in the low-lying areas.  When asked about the possible cause for these floods, barangay officials say that waste materials thrown by the squatters themselves could be the possible culprit.  Another potential reason may be that some residents have not been disposing off their garbage properly, and instead are throwing them into canals and other waterways.  Problems such as these bring us back to the problem of SWM.          

Barangay Sangandaan has its own SWM program in place.  There are large, conspicuous garbage bins  3 containers, side-by-side, color-coded as white, green and blue (for recyclable, organic and non-recyclable) -- scattered within the locality with the labels Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  However, these containers act as mere propaganda and nobody uses them since residents of the area have not been educated as to how their garbage should be segregated.  The traditional garbage truck which comes to collect waste materials twice a week is still the common method of garbage disposal, and residents are used to dumping their garbage together regardless of waste classification.  When the garbage truck comes to see the garbage bins in a certain area, it is empty.  However, upon going house to house, they find a lot of collectible waste, organic, recyclable, non-recyclable, sometimes even toxic materials mixed altogether.      

The following steps will be taken in preparing the Needs Assessment for SWM in Barangay Sangandaan QC.  Since a SWM program is already in place in the barangay, the problem to be addressed is why the current program is a failure, and what solutions should be done for its full implementation.  First, a public forum will be conducted by the Barangay officials in the community on the importance of SWM. This will be a re-education at a multi-level on the value of SWM and its positive effects on the locality.  Next, community leaders will be invited so that problems, issues and possible recommendations or solutions may be brought out.  A committee will be formed to address the primary problem of SWM.  These same leaders should be able to make the commitment to help this project until its realization.  The leaders will also have their own network of sub-leaders who will make sure that the needs assessment is being conducted as planned.  National, local and other small businesses may be tapped for potential funding of this undertaking.

A community survey on 300 respondents will be done to determine their awareness on SWM.  From this, specific information, statistics and demographics may be gauged.  The results of this should be made into a report to determine the course of action to be taken.

Solid Waste Management is a community concern which everyone should be involved in.  It is important to create awareness about the consequences of pollution so that people become conscious of the need to deal with this problem. In the US, they have devised a way of reducing waste production by means of source reduction, recycling and composting.  It has come to a point where environmental and health issues are already at stake and each member of the community should be educated and mobilized to make an effort.