MANILA, Philippines – Constructing a materials recovery facility (MRF) in every barangay as required by the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act is too costly, too complicated, and too smelly. 

This was the Quezon City government’s response to a Rappler investigative article showing how the city is wasting millions of taxpayers’ money by not following the garbage law.

The law orders all local government units to decentralize their garbage management. To do this, LGUs are required to ensure each barangay has an MRF, a facility where the village’s trash is segregated into biodegradable, non-biodegradable, recyclable and special wastes. 

Biodegradables like food waste and dead leaves can then be composted by the village and turned into fertilizer. Recyclables like plastic bottles, paper and soda cans can be reused or sold to recycling centers.

Only non-recyclable, non-recoverable and special wastes are the kinds of waste the city is supposed to collect and transfer to the landfill.  

As it is, QC spends almost P1 billion a year just to sustain its centralized system of garbage management. Instead of investing in MRFs, the city pays 6 contractors roughly P150 million each every year to pick up all of the city’s garbage and bring them to the city’s centralized MRF and landfill in Payatas. 

The money is spent on paying for all the fuel consumed by the dump trucks, as well as the salaries of the collectors and maintenance of the trucks. 

These costs are expected to rise as the Payatas landfill is reaching overcapacity forcing QC to use a landfill outside the city. Such a move will quadruple costs since the city will have to pay for more trucks, more fuel and more collectors. (READ: SC stops Quezon City garbage fee collection)

The article showed that if QC only decentralized its system, as required by law, the city would save P253 million – even after paying for all barangay MRFs.

Too costly, too smelly 

The letter to Rappler dated April 7, 2014 and signed by City Administrator Aldrin Cuña went on the defense.

Attached notes from Environment Protection and Waste Management Department (EPWMD) Head Frederika Rentoy asserted that though putting MRFs in each barangay is “ideal,” the city is unable to implement the law because of several difficulties. 

Putting up an MRF would require space most barangays do not have, she explained.

“In a highly urbanized city with a dense population, space is big problem…Instead of allotting these areas for MRFs, some barangays would opt to utilize these open spaces into health centers, multipurpose halls, recreational facilities, etc.”

But Froilan Grate, President of Mother Earth Foundation, said this is just a cop out.

“It is unfortunate that QC with all its resources would focus on excuses rather than solutions. Several barangays in Malabon and the urban barangays in San Fernando had the same problem – lack of space, but they were able to solve this,” he told Rappler.

“Several Metro Manila barangays have designed MRFs within multipurpose halls and recreational facilities.”

But Rentoy wrote that even the barangays who have successfully put up an MRF cannot sustain it for long because of lack of support from residents.

These barangays are “bombarded with complaints by the residents living near the facility” because of the impression of MRFs as a source of bad odor, sanitation and health problems. 

But Grate said that foul smell and flies are the result of improperly managed MRFs. 

A visit by Rappler to a village MRF in San Fernando, Pampanga showed how the barangay used wood shavings and sand to cover biodegradable waste as a way to keep flies out and keep bad odors at bay. The result was an odorless MRF. 

Without mentioning numbers, Rentoy also said that operating an MRF would require the purchase of expensive equipment like a shredder, composting drum and dryer. 

But hundreds of MRFs have operated successfully without these devices, said Grate. 

A working MRF would cost P500,000, while a one-year worth of salaries for 10 garbage collectors for each barangay would cost P960,000.

If the total is multiplied by the number of QC barangays, 142, the result shows that it would cost the city only  P207.3 million a year to pay for the operation of 142 MRFs. This figure already includes the one-time cost of constructing the facility, a cost which would not figure in the succeeding years. 

This is only 21% of the P998 million QC spent on its centralized garbage collection for the year 2013.

‘False’ solutions

 In the end, Rentoy claimed barangays have been contributing well to the city’s garbage program, a sign that the system is already somewhat decentralized. 

The city, with the help of the barangays, has been able to implement segregation at source – when homeowners segregate their own waste even before the trucks arrive to pick up the garbage.

“The city has already attained a 42% waste diversion rate – this, despite not having an MRF in every barangay,” she said.

But Grate lamented, “It is unfortunate that QC thinks they are successful with their 42% diversion.”

The law sets a target of a minimum 50% diversion rate – the percentage of garbage that it recycles, reuses and composts and which does not end up in the landfill.

Incentives for local dumptrucks 

The QC government offers barangays incentives to use their own garbage collection trucks for waste collection, but very few barangays have bitten the carrot, Rentoy bemoaned. This would have been one way to decentralize the system.

But barangays were discouraged because of the high cost of maintaining trucks and the rising price of fuel.

Ironically, these are the very problems which make the city’s current system unsustainable.

Local garbage trucks are the wrong solution and a skewed interpretation of “decentralization,” said Grate.  

“Trucks are not ideal for barangay-based, door-to-door collection.”

Successful barangays have instead utilized push carts, tribikes and other equipment that are less expensive, easier to maintain and much more practical, given the small size of a barangay unit. – Rappler.com