Household Garbage and Waste Recycling for Sustainable Community:

Barangay of Tamia Province of Compostela Valley

A Project Proposal Presented to

University of Mindanao, Davao City

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for

Science, Technology, and Society

(GE 5)

Presented To:

Elmer Galang, MST - Physics

Presented By:

Lealyn C. Cuesta
Background

In Compostela Valley, specifically Barangay Tamia, proper sanitation of waste

is one of the most common environmental issues. The increase in the barangay’s

population has led to the alarming increase of waste volume due to high material

consumption. The changing characteristics of waste from plastic and other kind of

wastes have also brought to uncontrolled dumping and overflowing canals and rivers

that results to flooding.

This proposed household garbage and waste recycling for sustainable

community is vital to heighten community awareness on the importance of reducing

the environmental impacts of solid waste disposal. The activities associated with this

proposed project are waste generation, waste separation, collection and disposal.

The targeted population includes residents of Barangay Tamia that has a total

population of 3, 069 consisting of 636 households with an average household size of

5. The barangay is composed of 9 puroks. There are 1, 555 or 51.42% who belong

to the single population, 749 or 24.76% married population and 374 or 12.36%

belong to live-in. it has a total labor force of 1, 313. Majority of this population are

laborers accounting for 663 (50.4%) of the total labor force. This is followed by

farmers with a total of 234 (17.8%). The rest are public and private employees,

skilled and semi-skilled workers and OFW’s accounting for a total of 416 (31.6%).

The household garbage and waste recycling for sustainable community is critical to

assessing the viability of creating alternative solid waste disposal habits that can also

create employment in an emerging industry.

Objectives

This project aims to address the current waste management situation in

Barangay Tamia, by concentrating on reducing household garbage disposal through

recyclable options which provides an alternate monetary avenue for the community

and also proposing alternate means of garbage disposals.

It also empowers human capability through generating waste segregation by

households and to capacitate all individuals in the barangay on proper waste

segregation mandated by law.

Significance

The proposed study is significant not only to the community of Barangay

Tamia but also to the environment. Household garbage and waste recycling will help

nurture crops and result in a better agricultural yield since Barangay of Tamia is rich

with agricultural products like rice, corn, banana and coconut. By this, farmers would

gain greater profit with their products.

This project is also beneficial to the environment for it lessen pollution by

properly segregating waste and prevent catastrophe like flash floods that could affect

the people living in Barangay Tamia. By waste recycling, it could be one of the best

ways to avoid diseases like dengue, cholera, and leptospirosis.

Methodology

The following activities of the household garbage and waste recycling for

sustainable community project are contained within two components – Community

Outreach and Research and Development for Feasibility Report.

 As the educational component of the household garbage and waste recycling

for sustainable community project, workshop will be offered on two platforms – Event

Location and School Tours. Event Location workshops are designed for adult

participants while the School Tour workshops designed for youth participants. These

two community outreach efforts are designed to provide awareness and education

on the importance of sustainable solid waste disposal practices and gather relevant

information of project research. In addition to community outreach activities, the

project will generate preliminary data in research areas related to the feasibility of

recycling waste for sustainable community.

The project budget will be 500,000. It will be used for the acquisition of 30

sets of bins that will be distributed to nine purok. Others will be used for other

purposes for the improvement of the project to attain the desired goals.

Science and Technology Application

The application of science and technology in this project is also relevant. This

project is in connection to our law which is Republic Act No. 9003 which means 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 therefor, and for other purposes.

To avoid the environmental contamination and human health risks due to the

poor waste management, this project applies different technologies for easy

application.

Waste bin monitoring technology using Global System of Mobile (GSM)

Combination of Zigbee technology and GSM is a latest trend in the field of

waste collection. In this technology sensors are placed in public garbage bins to
detect a certain optimum level of waste. As the garbage reaches the threshold level,

indication will be transferred to the controller which will further give indication to

driver of collection truck for emptying the bin urgently. The indication will be send to

the driver through SMS using GSM.

Compact garbage collection trucks

In many developing countries, because of narrow and congested roads small

garbage collection trucks are used. Latest technologies introduced garbage

compactors in collector trucks in order to increase the collection capacity of vehicle.

With continuous modification currently these trucks have achieved high compression

rate as they can carry 1.5 times more waste as compare to flat pile trucks. The

technology does not only increase collection capacity, but also increases the fuel

efficiency which is more environmentally and economically feasible.

Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT)

The term MBT is used for the combination of biological and mechanical

processes for the transportation and segregation of waste into various outputs. MBT

is being considered as pre-treatment. The main aim of MBT is the energy recovery

from the waste. The biological processes are designed to minimize the content of

water and the mechanical process aims to separate metals and glass from the

waste.

Multi-compartment bins

Recently, developed countries including Sweden are using multi compartment

bins for source segregation of waste. These types of waste bins have separate

compartments for different types of waste. Through this organic, paper waste and

recyclables can be segregated on the spot of generation, while recyclable can be

recycled or reused, as through this method contamination can be avoided.