408 Solid Waste: Turning a Health Risk Into a Resource
Resource recovery centers
Several communities in the Philippines have resource recovery centers set up
by local governments and an organization called Mother Earth Foundation.
These resource recovery centers have inspired community solid waste programs
throughout the country, and have helped change the entire system of waste
management.
Households are encouraged to separate their wastes and to clean the
materials that can be reused and recycled. Some communities passed a law to
reduce bad smells by preventing people from piling wastes outside.
People keep organic wastes in closed containers in the house or carry them
to compost bins set up throughout the community. Every day, workers from the
resource recovery center travel through the communities on 3-wheeled carts
to collect organic wastes, recyclables, and wastes to be discarded. Sometimes
people are paid for their recyclables. Everything is brought to the resource
recovery center, which has 2 main parts:
• an ecology garden, where organic matter is composted and used to grow
vegetables for sale to the community.
• an eco-shed or warehouse, where clean recyclables are stored before
being sold to junk shops, recycling companies, or factories.
Some centers also provide work areas where people make new products out of
old materials. Juice cartons are flattened and sewn together to make carrying
bags. Glass bottles are shaped into drinking glasses.
Old newspapers are shredded and woven together to make baskets and
bags that are covered with clear glue or resin to make them
stiff and durable. These things are sold to provide
income for the people who made them and to
pay for the costs of running the resource
recovery centers.
The centers have dramatically
reduced the amount of trash in
their communities. Rather than
living with smelly piles of
waste, people now earn extra
income from reused and
recycled materials, and
produce more vegetables
using composted food waste.
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012