SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES OF HOUSEHOLDS IN

BARANGAY ANGOLUAN, ECHAGUE, ISABELA

CHAPTER 1: THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Ⅰ. INTRODUCTION

The Philippines is a country of 85 million people and encompasses 7,107 islands, though
only about 2,000 islands are currently inhabited. The Philippines has a total area of 30
million hectares (ha), which is roughly 90% the total area of Malaysia. The archipelago
stretches more than 1,800 kilometers (km) north to south and 1,100 km east to west, and is
located between the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea. Taiwan lies to the north of the
island chain while Malaysia and Indonesia lie to the south.

With a rapidly growing population and lack of adequate disposal sites, solid waste has
become a major problem for most medium to large-size cities. When Philippine President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took office in January 2001, the first act she signed into law dealt
with solid waste management. In recent years, inadequate solid waste management systems
have posed serious health risks particularly in densely populated areas. In Manila, for
example, the closure of the largest disposal site in 2000 combined with the inadequate
capacity at other sites resulted in the disposal of tons of waste along city streets, empty lots,
and in the waterways and bays in and around the city. Scavenging for recyclable material at
open dumps is very common throughout many parts of the Philippines. Tragically, excessive
open dumping of solid waste combined with the seasonal monsoon rains at the Payatas site in
July 2000 caused a large -scale slope failure that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of
scavengers.

Currently, there is a lack of active sanitary landfills throughout the entire country. Solid
waste in small island communities is managed primarily through open dumping and open
burning. However, several permitted “controlled dumps” have been constructed and they
employ a minimum of environmental controls. Controlled dumps differ significantly from
open dumps in that cover material is used to bury waste. In some progressive communities,
composting, recycling, and resource recovery operations have been implemented. In the more
remote areas of the country, solid waste is managed at the household level since there are no
community-wide collection and disposal services.

Solid waste refers to the range of garbage materials—arising from animal and human
activities—that are discarded as unwanted and useless. Solid waste is generated from
industrial, residential, and commercial activities in a given area, and may be handled in a
variety of ways. As such, landfills are typically classified as sanitary, municipal, construction
and demolition, or industrial waste sites.

Waste can be categorized based on material, such as plastic, paper, glass, metal, and organic
waste. Categorization may also be based on hazard potential, including radioactive,
flammable, infectious, toxic, or non-toxic wastes. Categories may also pertain to the origin of
the waste, whether industrial, domestic, commercial, institutional, or construction and
demolition.

Solid Waste Management (SWM) is considered to be one of the most serious environmental
issues in the Philippines. Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, provides the
necessary policy framework, institutional mechanisms and mandate to the local government
unites (LGUs) to achieve 25% waste reduction through establishing an integrated solid waste
management plans based on 3Rs (reduce, reuse and recycling).

As provided in RA 9003, the State adopted a “systematic, comprehensive, and ecological

solid waste management program”. It provides for the reduction and minimization of waste at
source through composting, recycling, reuse, and recovery, among others. The systematic
administration of activities (segregation at source, segregated collection, and transportation,
storage, transfer, processing, treatment, and disposal of solid waste) and all other waste
management activities that do not harm the environment refers to ecological solid waste
management.

However, RA 9003 sets the guidelines on waste reduction, the efforts of LGUs are still very
limited. This paper therefore aims to present the experiences of Barangay Angoluan
households and discuss its efforts to achieve 30% waste reduction involving innovative
institutional and partnership strategies.

Solid waste management is not just a corporate social responsibility or a non-priority service
anymore. Improper waste management is a public health and environmental crisis, economic
loss, operational inefficiency and political and public awareness failure. Integrated solid
waste management can be a nation building exercise for healthier and wealthier
communities. Therefore, it needs global attention to arrive at solutions which span across
such a wide range of issues. Waste disposal is becoming a major threat to environmental
issues and to sustainable development of mankind.

Objectives: This study aims to promote best practices of waste management of household in
Brgy. Angoluan, Echague, Isabela.
II. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study oath to answer solid waste management practices of households in Barangay
Angoluan, Echague, Isabela. Specifically answer the following questions:

1. What are solid waste management often practiced by most of the households?

2. How can the residents of Barangay Angoluan, Echague, Isabela implement the three R’s
(reduce, reuse & recycle)?

3. What are the household’s best practices and intervention in solid waste management?

III. SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

This study will focus on the waste management practices of households in Barangay
Angoluan. The researchers will conduct Face to Face interviews using research
questionnaires following strictly IATF Protocols (wearing face mask, avoiding direct contact,
maintaining distance and always applying sanitizers/alcohols). Waste management is a
worldwide problem and every unit of the society needs to address to lessen its disastrous
effect. We cannot stop waste production entirely, but everyone can make a significant
contribution. This study was taken to sum-up activities in performing SWM, its advantage
and disadvantage as well as household interventions of fifteen respondents.

IV. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The results and findings of this study will benefit the following:

Barangay/Households: they will be able to assess success of the implementation of 3Rs and
proper management of solid waste.

Department of Education: they will be able to see the need of integrating the importance of
proper waste disposal, such as waste segregation and recycling as part of the curriculum.

LGU: Increase advocacy on the proper waste segregation for the efforts to preserve and
protect the environment.
DEFINITION OF TERMS

For a better understanding of this study the following terms are defined in the context of this
research.

Solid Waste Management (SWM)- Solid waste management is defined as the discipline
associated with control of generation, storage, collection, transport or transfer, processing
and disposal of solid waste materials in a way that best addresses the range of public health,
conservation, economic, aesthetic, engineering, and other environmental considerations.

Households-consists of one or several persons who live in the same dwelling and share
meals. It may also consist of a single family or another group of people.

3Rs-are the basis for reducing waste and process optimization and referred to as Reduce,
Reuse & Recycle

Best Practices/Intervention-a carefully planned process or action taken to improve a

situation

Republic Act 9003- known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000,
provides the necessary policy framework, institutional mechanisms and mandate to the local
government unites (LGUs) to achieve 25% waste reduction through establishing an
integrated solid waste management plans based on 3Rs (reduce, reuse and recycling).
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Solid Waste Management is one of the primary problems the Philippines is facing right now.
People discard their trashes from their homes that do not fit in with its “flow” of garbage. Thus,
some recyclable ends up in the non-recyclable bin heading to the landfills or worst some of the
garbage are dumped anywhere; it could be in the rivers, seas, and canals that bring pollution to
our environment. In any case, the garbage of every barangay that is not segregated properly can
cause trouble when calamities or disaster come. Being a country that is being hit with at least 20
typhoons a year, this is an issue that the local government unit must give action immediately and
must assess as to how and what should be done.

“An act providing for an ecological solid waste management program, creating the necessary
institutional mechanisms and incentives, declaring certain acts prohibited and providing
penalties, appropriating funds therefore, and for other purposes” ( Republic Act 9003, 2001)

“The implementation and enforcement of the provisions of this Act (Republic Act 9003) shall be
the primary responsibility of the Local Government Units (LGUs) within their respective
jurisdictions as stipulated in the RA 7160, otherwise known as the Local Government Code of
1991. The law also mandates that segregation and collection of solid waste shall be conducted at
the barangay level while collection of non-recyclable materials and special wastes shall be the
duty of the municipality or city.”(Gequinto, 2016)

The status of Solid Waste Management (SWM) is a critical to set what should be done by the
government and private sectors for better results and better policy making. (Vivar et.al, 2015)

With Green Politics and Rational-Choice Theory, as the theories, and RA 9003 (ECOSWAM), as
the legal basis, solid waste management is produced. The Local Government Unit/LGU is
responsible for enacting and securing the proper solid waste management. The National
Government in vested local autonomy to LGU‟s to make them effective partners in achieving
national goals includes LGU‟s to facilitate solid waste management. (Vivar, 2015)
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing, recycling or disposal of waste
materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and is generally
undertaken to reduce their effect on health, aesthetics or amenity. Waste management is also
carried out to reduce the materials' effect on the environment and to recover resources from
them. It can also involve solid, liquid or gaseous substances, with different methods and fields of
expertise for each. (Azuelo, et.al, 2016)

Varying readiness in each municipality, barangay officials and households in the implementation
of waste segregation strategies can be attributed to the performance and political will of the local
officials. Without the support of the local officials, programs such as Ecological Solid Waste
Management Act will not go any further than the existing method of mixed collection and open
dumping of wastes. (Azuelo, et.al, 2016)

In technical note, the term ‘solid waste’ is used to include all non-liquid wastes generated by
human activity and a range of solid waste material resulting from the disaster, such as general
domestic garbage such as food waste, ash and packaging materials; human faeces disposed of in
garbage; emergency waste such as plastic water bottles and packaging from other emergency
supplies; rubble resulting from the disaster; mud and slurry deposited by the natural disaster; and
allen trees and rocks obstructing transport and communications. Other specialist wastes, such as
medical waste from hospitals and toxic waste from industry, will also need to be dealt with
urgently, but they are not covered by this technical note (World Health Organization, 2011).

Reusable solid wastes such as bottles, plastics, cellophanes and papers shall be brought to the
barangay material recovery facility duly segregated or directly to the agent-buyers. Non-
recyclable materials and special solid wastes will be brought to the material recovery facility,
while hazardous wastes or chemicals will be disposed in coordination with concerned
government agencies according to prescribed methods. The local government is responsible for
collecting reusable, recyclable and non-biodegradable waste materials from the material recovery
facilities; and transporting them to the recycling centers and or to the municipal material
recovery facility. Collection of segregated solid wastes is scheduled per barangay (Saley, 2012).
 The Environmental Protection Agency has determined a three tiered approach for managing
solid waste. Each of these should be practiced to reduce the amount material headed for final
disposal. They are in order of importance: REDUCE, the best way to manage solid waste.Don't
create waste in the first place! Buy only what you need. Use all that you buy. Avoid heavily
packaged products. Avoid disposable items like paper plates and plastic silverware. Buy the
largest size package for those items that you use are often. REUSE, the better way to manage
solid waste. Reuse items use them over and over until they are completely worn out. RECYCLE,
the good way to manage solid waste.Recycle means taking something old and making it into
something new. In Seminole County, all residents who live in a single family home can recycle
right in front of their house. Those residents who live in apartments or condominiums can drop
off their recyclables at several different locations. Old newspapers, #1 and #2 plastic bottles,
green, clear and brown glass bottles and jars, aluminum and steel cans can all be recycled at the
curb. Simply rinse out containers and remove lids. That's it; it's very simple and very worthwhile.
Not only does it keep items out of the landfill, recycling conserves natural resources (Seminole
County Government, 2012).

Recycling. Solid wastes may be recycled into useful products. Nowadays, as reported by
Guzman et al., (2010), recyclable materials recovered from municipal refuse. Many
municipalities require that those who generate solid wastes must separate and keep bottles, cans,
newspaper, cardboards and other recyclables items. Special trucks pick up these wastes and
transfer to the recycling facilities.

Proper collection is a solution to the country’s waste problem. Unfortunately, disposal would not
be the most and sole answer to this concern (Guzman et al., 2010). Until recently, the disposal of
municipal solid waste does not attract much public attention. From prehistory through the present
day, the favored means of disposal was simply to dump solid waste outside the city and village
limits (Enger & Smith, 2006).

On the other hand, source reduction is considered to be the solution to solid waste problem. This
means that first and foremost, people should consider how much waste is generated and in what
ways can they reduced it. Secondly, they should consider how much of the wastes can be
diverted from final disposal into other forms. Related to this, several issues need to be resolved
by the government agencies concerned with the solid waste management program in the
Philippines (Guzman et al, 2010).

Reduction of the source. The most fundamental way to reduce wastes, according to Cunningham
and Saigo (2003), is to keep them from becoming waste in the first place. Source reduction
involves using fewer materials in the production of a product or switching from heavy to
lightweight packaging materials. Some packaging materials are converted to lightweight
aluminum and plastic, reducing packaging thickness and, as a result, packaging waste. Plastic
milk jugs weighed roughly half as much as they did when they were first introduced in 2003.
Individuals can help to reduce the amount of waste they produce. Every small personal
contribution adds up to a significant reduction in municipal solid waste.

Composting. Biodegradable wastes can be transformed into fertilizer or soil conditioner in the
form of compost. Compost is a humus-like material that usually results from the aerobic
biological stabilization of the organic materials in solid wastes. The operation includes preparing
the refuse and de grading organic matter by aerobic microorganism. The refuse is presorted to
remove materials that might have a salvage value cannot be composted, then it is ground to
improve efficiency of the decomposition process. This can be a soil conditioner to and a fertilizer
for flower heads, vegetables gardens, trees and shrubs (Guzman et al., 2010)

Burning Wastes. In cities that do not have enough land available for landfills, controlled burning
of wastes at high temperatures to produce steam and ash is a preferred waste disposal technique.
Combustion reduces significantly the volume of wastes to be disposed. Moreover, solid wastes
can provide for a continuously available and alternative source for generating energy through
combustion. This energy can be channeled into useful purpose (Debashree, 2012).

Republic Act. No. 9003or the “Ecological Solid Waste Management Act” provides the legal
framework for the country’s systematic, comprehensive and ecological solid waste management
program that shall ensure protection of public health and the environment. It underscores, among
other things, the need to create the necessary institutional mechanism and, as well as imposes
penalties for acts in violation of any of its provisions. (The National Solid Waste Management
Commission Secretariat; Environment Management Bureau-DENR, 2012).
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

RESEARCH DESIGN

This chapter presents the methodologies doing this research. It includes the
methods of research, the research instrument, the data gathering Procedure and the statistical
treatment.

This study will use the descriptive research design. Its Purpose is to identify the role
played by the households in solid waste management in Barangay Angoluan, Echague, FY 2022.
It is limited on fifteen (15) households only.

The researcher will use a structured questionnaire that answered the roles of households
in solid waste management and their best practices as well as interventions.

The researchers will use structured questionnaire divided into the first parts the
demographic profile and the second part the role played by the households in solid waste
management and, the third part the mechanism are in place to improve The participation of
Household in solid waste management.

The researcher will distribute a set of questionnaire that be given and personally answer
by the households. The researcher Focus and guide the respondents to assure that all item and
question in their questionnaire was filled up and answered following strictly the IATF Protocols
at all times.

The data collected were organized and classified based on the research method and the
problems formulated. The data were encoded, tallied, and tabulated to simplify the presentation
and interpretation of the results using Frequency and Percentage Distributions

The data collected will be organized and classified based on the researcher method and
the problem formulated. The data were coded, tallied and tabulated to facilitate the presentation
and interpretation of the results using frequency and percentage distribution.
 Frequency and percentage distribution was used to classify the Principles of solid waste
management as perceived by the respondents. The Frequency also presented the actual response
of the respondents to a specific Question item in the questionnaires.
CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA

The data gathered from 15 households of Barangay Angoluan are presented, analysed and
consolidated through the following charts.

1. What are the solid waste management often practiced by most of the households of
Barangay Angoluan?

Sales

21% 17% Segregation

Recycling & reusing
Composting
4% Burning
Proper disposal
13%

46%

Based from the chart, the most commonly practised solid waste management of the
households is recycling and reusing of materials with 46% followed by proper waste disposal
at 21%, waste segregation at 17%, composting at 12% and the least practised burning at 4%.
 2. How can the residents of Barangay Angoluan implement the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse,
Recycle)?

Sales
The

9% Buying products with less packag-

ing
Using reusable bags (eco-bag,
36% 18% paper/tote bags)
Information dissemination of 3Rs
Policy implementation of 3Rs
3Rs advocacy programs/activities

18%
18%

table shows that the residents of Barangay Angoluan prefer 3Rs advocacy programs/activities to
reinforce the implementation of 3Rs with 37% followed by using reusable bags when going to
the market, information dissemination by conducting meetings or seminars and provision of
barangay policy at 18% correspondingly and the least favoured implementation of 3Rs is buying
products with less packaging at 9%.
 3. What are the household’s best practices and interventions in solid waste
management?

Sales

Implementation of 3Rs
35% Composting
39% Recycling and reusing
segregation and proper disposal

13%
13%

Table 3 shows that the best practices and intervention of Barangay angoluan households focuses
on the implementation of the 3Rs with 39% followed by segregation and proper waste disposal at
35% and both at 13% composting and recycling or reusing of materials.
CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION