Get Creative in Recycling

Now with some creativity, earning more money from waste is within every Pinoy family’s reach. Ever heard of Bazurabags? How aboutvermi-casts, organic fertilizers, briquettes, and flower pots out of sando bags and polystyrene? These are garbage, recycled and converted to “new” products, with the potential to rake money for the “creative entrepreneur”.

Take the case of the K.I.L.U.S. Foundation (in Barangay Ugong, Pasig), makers of the internationally-famous Bazurabags. K.I.L.U.S. Foundation is an association of the women of Barangay Ugong, who pioneered the search for livelihood opportunities from garbage, converting non-recyclable juice containers to colorful, fashionable bags.

Who would have thought that discarded doy packs could again be made useful? The women of K.I.L.U.S. Foundation did, and now, they are earning dollars from the bags. So for families with doy packs to discard, sell them to the K.I.L.U.S. Multi-purpose Environmental Cooperative at 36 C. Santos St., Ugong, Pasig City, or contact Ms. Editha Santiago, Chairperson of the Foundation.

The municipality of E.B. Magalona even uses doy packs creatively (and colorfully) for pedicabs and office chairs.

We have covered doy packs, so let’s go to another type of plastic, the sando bags. Sunday markets will not be complete without having to go home with sando bags. Since 2004, the Environmental Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources launched a campaign dubbed, “Mag-Bawas Balot, Bawas Basura Tayo!”, targeted to minimize the use of sando bags among market vendors, and buyers, to prevent plastics from clogging esteros and canals.

Yearly, 330 kilometers of rivers and esteros, and sewerage, are being de-clogged of plastics, and 2,100 kilometers of roads being swept of 6 tons of garbage – a problem needed to be addressed by proper waste management, and by waste AVOIDANCE.

Used sando bags can be sold in volume, can be recycled, and melted to become useful products like flower pots and foot walks.

Used sando bags, other plastics, and even polystyrene (styropor) are melted using the Styro-Oven, a technology developed by the Industrial Technology Development Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) which melts polystyrene and plastic materials with used cooking oil to become useful products such as tiles, panel boards, table tops, synthetic, lumber, school desks, and chairs. These are school and office furniture people would readily buy. In fact, some of these tiles will be used at the Pasig River linear parks!

Corn husks are transformed into dolls and accessories, while concrete products are also being produced from the integrated solid waste management facility located at the Sitio Pantay, Dalig, Teresa in Rizal.

Money equals Advocacy

Managing and selling wastes as not just about the money, it is also about the environment. When we segregate wastes, place them in MRFs, or recycle them into functional pieces, not only are we earning money but we are taking part in the global campaign to save our
environment.

It also means having to follow (while earning) the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (Republic Act 9003), a law about the control, transfer, transport, processing, and disposal of solid waste in the country. In short, it is like hitting two birds with one stone.

From trading garbage at the waste markets to making crafts out of it, people are really earning cash from trash. When we do our share in segregating and recycling our garbage, we help in putting a stop to the 30 years garbage problem our country is facing, and at the same time, earn from it.

Earning money from garbage is easy, you surely will never look at garbage the same way again – for now, garbage has become a valuable resource.

For more information on how to manage wastes, contact the National
Solid Waste Management Commission – Secretariat, Environmental
Management Bureau – DENR, 2nd Flr., HRD Building, DENR
Compound, Visayas Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City, Telephone
numbers: (632) 920-2252, 920-2279, 925-4796 / 925-4797 local 3.

source: http://www.emb.gov.ph