Current State of Waste Management in the Philippines >>>

20 cities worldwide have been named the inaugural 20 Cities Towards Zero Waste, an initiative led by the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Zero Waste.

Everybody has an idea what waste means but especially when we look at the ocean we have the plastic waste and this is a disaster. Becoming aware of these problems is the starting point to find solutions"

Sanitary landfill facilities are the primary means of waste disposal in the Philippines, but their availability and capacity vary across different regions.

Messrs. Mark Bergman and Nelson Remulla of WtERT-Philippines submitted the Special Issue of Cosmopolitan Humanist on the WtERT-Philippines 2018 activities.

Presentation from WTERT-Asia Inaugural Meeting April 2017

The mitigation of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from waste management can contribute to combat climate change where national and local governments play major roles.The adoption of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA) as anchor program may stimulate the development of relevant action plans. In the Philippines, as in other developing countries, many municipalities struggle to upgrade their solid waste management (SWM) system due to limited budgets and lack of expertise in operating efficient technologies.

The potential renewable energy capacity of the Philippines is estimated to be 2,600 MW of geothermal, 13,097 MW of hydroelectric, 70,000 MW of wind, 170,000 MW of ocean energy, 323 MMBFOE of biomass, and 5.1 kilowatt-hour (kWh)/m2/day of solar energy.

Hapag-Lloyd has announced that Effective February 16, 2026 a completed Letter of Indemnity (LOI) is mandatory for shipments of plastic scraps and metal scraps

The report warns of the staggering amount of mismanaged plastic waste generated and urges action to tackle this important problem.

In emerging economies were municipal solid waste typically consists of a high proportion of organic residues which amounts up to 60% mass or more composting is a favorable technology to transfer that part of waste into a marketable product for agriculture or gardening to improve soil fertility especially in nutrient deficient and/or devastated areas through its humus and mineral content. However, application potentials including marketing opportunities depend on high quality of the produced composts which term refers to valuable criteria such as organic matter content or plant nutrients, as well as precautionary environmental criteria such as hygienic aspects and the content of potentially toxic substances.

ENVIROS s.r.o. (Prague) together with the companies VHS Brno and IRG Philippines is involved in the project in the Republic Philippines. The project is in the framework of solving environmental issues in the Philippines and is part of the Czech Republic’s Development Cooperation Programme of technical assistance administered by the Czech Ministry of Environment. Naga City has approximately 140 thousand inhabitants and produces daily some 70 tonnes of waste. The municipal dump site, which dates from 1935, is in the close proximity of Naga River and does not fulfil the requirements of the “Ecological Solid Waste Management Act” from 2000 (Act No. 9003).

Energetické využití odpadů na Filipínách

The largely unregulated waste management poses grave problems in many Asian cities. The need to organize waste management systematically and communicate this to people requires a lot of awareness training, good networking, a clear focus on results and a great deal of patience. Key individuals on all levels must be involved in order to increase acceptance among the population. The Technologie-Transfer-Zentrum, ttz (Technology Transfer Centre, ttz) in Bremerhaven, Germany, is aiming to develop and locally implement a realizable model with 21 partners from Europe and Asia, within the EU project ISSOWAMA (Integrated Sustainable Solid Waste Management in Asia). The project was officially launched in Bangkok on February 11 and 12.

A long term field experiment has been initiated in 1998 to study the effects of urban compost application on soil and plant qualities.

This paper explores the common issues that exist in the ecosan field and in the solid waste sector, with regards to collection, transport, treatment and reuse. It describes ecosan pilot and up-scaling projects from the Philippines, India, Germany and Africa, which show in one way or another these common elements.

This paper evaluates data from six case studies of municipal composting projects in the Western Visayas namely: Bayawan City, Bais City and San Carlos City on Negros Island, Buenavista Municipality on Guimaras Island and Roxas City and Passi City on Panay Island.

Iloilo City is the center of the second largest urban region in the Visayas, an island group forming the central part of the Phillipines, the hub of the newly established Metro Iloilo- Guimaras Economic Development Council (MIGEDC). It is located southeast of Panay Island with a population of 366,000. However, during daytime, the actual population of the city alone reaches half a million, when visitors use or incoming employees work in regional institutions such as universities, hospitals, banks, airport, seaport, and commercial centers which offer special services. Together with its other neighboring MIGEDC municipalities the urban region totals to about 806,549 in population and may become another Mega-Center with a total land area of 988.67 sq.km..

In most developing and emerging countries, collecting, sorting and recycling of waste provides income to thousands of people of the informal sector. They work in the streets, at dumpsites, landfills, transfer stations or at separation plants. The informal sector is an important actor in collecting, recycling and valorising recyclables and organic waste from households and businesses. However, legitimising the activities of the informal sector and integrating them into the formal solid waste system is being regarded as a challenging process that takes a long time and requires the full commitment of all stakeholders involved. As the informal sector is often regarded as little profitable, not organised and not trustworthy, only few cooperation models between the public, private and informal private sector have been initiated so far.

Solid waste management is a major responsibility of local governments. It is a difficult task because it depends upon organization and cooperation between households, communities, private enterprises, and municipal authorities. It is also dependent upon the selection and application of appropriate technical solutions for waste collection, transfer, recycling and disposal. Waste management has important consequences for public health and well-being, and the quality and sustainability of the urban environment. Unfortunately, waste management services in many developing countries are inadequate; a large part of the population does not have access to a waste collection service and only a small fraction of the generated waste is actually collected.

Stability of landfills is one of the major geotechnical tasks in landfill design and operation. The knowledge about waste mechanics has significantly improved over the last decade. In Germany several large research projects have been conducted. In 1997, German Geotechnical Society released a technical recommendation reflecting the state of art in stability analysis. However, there are still open questions particularly about the influence of regional parameters such as tropical climate conditions, but also about variations in landfill operation and waste composition.

The use of biomass for combined heat and power (CHP) production becomes increasingly important. On the one hand it substitutes the usage of fossil fuels like coal, oil or natural gas; on the other hand it is neutral regarding the CO2-emissions into the atmosphere. That is the reason why many countries, especially the EU and the USA have launched very ambitious programs for increasing the usage of biomass, especially for power production.