GOING THROUGH THE Manila Times column of Chin Wong– a colleague from decades ago about the garbage crisis enunciated this month by President Marcos during his visit early this month at the Redemptorist Water Channel in Baclaran– he highlighted different ways by which other countries in Asia properly handled their garbage woes, including the solutions done right in our own Marikina City.
The waste in Baclaran included plastic bottles, grocery bags, sachets, food containers, styrofoam products, general household trash, worn textiles, discarded personal items, large pieces of drift timber, scrap wood, bamboo and sacks filled with silt and waste.
When successive storms and habagat lashed through our country this August, that same garbage that clogged the drainage channels, esteros and pumping stations, blocked 70 percent of Metro Manila’s internal drainage system and trapped floodwaters during heavy rains.
As Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon said “we have to fix this now” as he called for the development of an overall master plan that would address the country’s garbage problem — and the resulting perennial flooding in the metropolis.
In coming up with a master plan, the government might want to consider strategies from here and abroad that have successfully resolved the garbage problem in their cities, Wong stated.
The city of Curitiba, Brazil, for one, did away with dump trucks that cannot get through narrow slum alleys and set up mobile neighborhood collection docks where poor residents bring sorted trash in exchange for fresh produce, bus tokens and school supplies. Much of the garbage thrown in waterways are from slum dwellers in danger zones (like esteros, under the bridge dwellers and shanty towns).
Taipei, Taiwan, removed static dumpsters, requiring residents to hand-deliver trash to incoming garbage trucks playing classical music. Citizens must buy official prepaid, taxed trash bags, making household waste disposal an immediate, direct personal cost.
In Guayaquil, Ecuador, the city installed reverse vending machines across public transit terminals that allow commuters to insert plastic bottles and alumnum cans in exchange for instant transit card credits to pay for bus fares. Surabaya, Indonesia, has a similar scheme.
In Singapore, smoking/vaping and eating while walking or in transit are not allowed to prevent littering of food wrappers, drinks and cigaret butts or vape cases.
Wong advised Dizon to find solutions to the garbage problem, right here in Marikina City.
Marikina, the country’s shoe capital, is the gold standard for cleanliness in Metro Manila. Even the sidewalks around the public market are free from litter.
Keeping the city clean doesn’t require a huge budget. What it does entail is a combination of strict law enforcement, institutionalized household discipline, and an engineered, highly reliable collection system, Wong explained.
Under City Ordinance 046, the city prohibits leaving loose garbage bags unattended on sidewalks, where they can be ripped open by scavengers or stray dogs. Residents must store trash inside and give it directly to collection trucks as they pass.
It does not rely on voluntary compliance. Mixing biodegradable and nonbiodegradable trash is illegal and violation is fined by P2,000 or community service, such as street sweeping and cleanup duties. Littering, spitting or blowing your nose in public are prohibited and are fined from P200 to P500, depending on which ordinance has been deemed violated.
Enforcement is actively carried out by the City Environmental Management Office and local enforcers to maintain public health and sanitation across streets, parks, public transport and commercial areas.
The culture of cleanliness, which began in the 1990s when then mayor Bayani Fernando treated the city’s chaos and dirt as an engineering problem, has survived changes in the political leadership for more than 30 years. Today, civic pride about the city’s cleanliness and discipline is a defining part of the Marikeño identity.
Sadly, Fernando wasn’t able to replicate this success when he became chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority in 2002 and 2009.
We don’t need an overseas fact-finding mission or another expensive blueprint to save Metro Manila from drowning in garbage and floodwaters. The master plan already exists — it’s currently being executed, street by street, in Marikina. All our leaders have to do is follow it.
Like I said in my previous column, we only have ourselves to blame for the garbage crisis and the perennial floods from every habagat and typhoons that lash our country.