recycling2

All-female group advocates for livelihood from garbage
by Liza Agoot and Mariam Evangelista
Hitting two birds with one stone, the Gibraltar Women’s Association is not only helping in waste management, it is also providing livelihood for its members. This they do by making products out of used foil and plastic packaging.

Juliet Flores, president of the Gibraltar Sariling Sikap Organization, said that they make products such as slippers, vests, aprons, bags, Christmas decorations, folders, and other things out of junk food wrappers.

They are now experimenting on ma-king hats and raincoats out of the same material.

She said that they have thought of the idea after a Lakbay Aral trip where their minds and eyes were opened to the reality about the garbage issue. They noticed that their own Barangay Gibraltar is facing a problem in proper waste disposal.

Believing that they needed to do something to help in the garbage problem, they adopted the idea of Remy Weiman who taught them weaving. The training and production started last May.

The group of women collected bottles, newspapers, and other recyclables to be sold to help minimize wastes in their place. However, they saw that plastics are also a problem to their community so they decided to make something useful out of the plastics.

With patience, perseverance and motivation to be productive, and the conviction to help curb the garbage problem, junk food wrappers are cut into pieces, handcrafted, and turned into decorative and saleable products.

Flores said that the organization has 25 housewife members who get income from cleaning the materials and sewing portions of the pro-ducts.

The group also recruits workers who don’t have a stable source of income. “Wala daw silang pera kaya nag-isip tayo ng gagawin nila na pwedeng pagkakitaan at nakakatulong sa problema natin sa Baguio,” Flores said.

She said that before, they didn’t really plan to go into commercial production. But right now, even if they are still in the production stage they have already contacted bulk buyers of the products they created. The organization also started to give out salaries to its workers.

She added that their target in the barangay is zero waste as they manage by recycling residual wastes like shampoo sachets, toothpaste sachets, milk and coffee foil packs, junk food foil pack wrappers, tetra pack juice containers, and foil packs of condiments used in the kitchen.

She said, “Nagkukulang mga materials namin kaya bumibili na din kami.”
A clean condiment and tetra pack juice foil pack is bought at .20 centavos apiece while an unclean one is at .10 centavos apiece. A kilo of junk food containers costs P10.

They also teach those who want to learn, Flores added, but they have to bring their own materials.
“Gusto din namin na ilipat ang kaalaman para marami tayo na magtutulungan sa pag-ayos ng problema natin sa basura,” said Flores


Baguio turns styrofoam and plastic wastes into tiles

The Baguio city government has succeeded in its initial tests on using a special machine which would turn the tons of styrofoam and plastic garbage into saleable plastic tiles.
Engineer Nazita Banez of the City Environment and Parks Management (CEPMO) office said that the machine which “cook” the wastes was developed in recent years by the National Science and Technology Authority (NSTA).
The forthcoming plastic tile production will be at the controlled waste facility of the city at its former dumpsite in Barangay Irisan.
“We bought recently the smelting machine which includes a shredder at a cost of Php450,000. It makes use of washed plastic and styrofoam. The melted waste plus ordinary used oil are then placed into molders to allow it to cool. This way, we can deal with several tons of plastic bags and styro materials dumped by our almost half-a-million residents and visitors daily. It could even provide livelihood to the former waste pickers in our closed dumpsite,” she explained.
The tiles will soon be sold at commercial scale for building contractors as well as those in the landscaping industry.
Story courtesy of PNA