How decades-old policy keeps Marikina City trash-free
One practice that keeps the streets of Marikina City clean is that households and business establishments know how to segregate their trash into those that are biodegradable, nonbiodegradable, and recyclable, making it easy to collect and process.
People diligently follow the process of waste segregation because otherwise they would be fined P2,000 under City Ordinance No. 046, which was passed more than 20 years ago, in 2002.
“We have what you call an ecological solid waste management system. The good thing about Marikina is we teach every resident, every vendor or business establishment to segregate their trash at the source,” Oliver Villamena, head of the City Environmental Management Office (Cemo) in Marikina, told the Inquirer.
“Once the garbage is segregated at source, this helps prevent contaminating the trash. Like, for example, in restaurants, they really separate the food waste, they have a separate container. Our food waste truck will come, take the food waste, and bring it to the rotary composter,” he said.
Before implementing Ordinance No. 046, Villamena recalled that the city conducted a “massive” public information campaign to teach residents how to segregate their trash, with officials from Cemo visiting residential areas to conduct seminars and distribute flyers or pamphlets.
“We even have a ref magnet in every household. It is shaped like a garbage bag, where you could see how our trash is separated because that is needed,” he said.
After holding education campaigns, Villamena said the city began enforcing the ordinance, but kept the penalty to just a warning during the first year.
Once a year of enforcement had passed, that was when the city began strictly imposing a P2,000 fine on violators, he said.
“That’s where they are afraid, the penalty, because it’s P2,000. So, they would really follow,” said Villamena.
When it comes to keeping the city clean, it is not just the residents who put in the effort. For its part, Villamena said the Marikina local government implements a “systematic,” “organized,” door-to-door garbage collection, during which they are able to check if the trash was properly segregated or not.
He noted that the city conducts garbage collection three times a week—twice for trash that is biodegradable, and once for recyclables. Recyclable materials are brought to the city’s central materials recovery facility, with recovered food waste brought to the composting machine.
Two bioreactors
The city has two bioreactors which can turn scrap fruits and vegetables from wet markets, as well as the food waste from restaurants, into compost that can be used as fertilizer, Villamena explained.
As for styrofoam and plastics, these are fed into a styro-plastic densifier together with used cooking oil, melting it all together to form blocks that can be used as pathwalks, pavements, or tiles.
Aside from keeping the city free from garbage, Marikina also implements initiatives to maintain good air quality. These include the formation of a dedicated “antismoke belching” unit that roams the streets looking for any vehicle that may be releasing too much emissions.
“If a vehicle is running [followed by] meters of black smoke, we will apprehend that because, basically, that is what we call smoke-belchers,” said Villamena.
Suspected smoke-belchers are flagged down and checked using an emissions test in order to determine if it passes the air quality standards. If the vehicle fails, the owner will be issued a citation ticket.
On top of this, Villamena said the city also has four air quality monitoring stations located in strategic areas that were established under a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The data gathered by these stations help determine the possible sources of air pollution and see if the city is hitting its targets when it comes to air quality.
“Its a big help because it can monitor if the policies, projects, or programs in place are effective,” said Villamena. “For example, in Marikina, our street cleaners have a standard. Their standard is that even the dust should be removed.”
He added that Marikina also implements a “tree-caring” policy as part of efforts to improve the city’s air quality, noting the importance of carbon sequestration, or when trees absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere.
Green space
“We passed the monitoring of the Namria (National Mapping and Resource Information Authority) when it comes to the green space requirement,” said Villamena. “Here in Marikina, we protect the parks and open spaces, for them to be converted into green spaces or pocket gardens.”
More than just protecting its parks, Marikina also has a dedicated team for protecting its rivers and riverbanks. Called the river parks authority, this group is tasked with monitoring and cleaning the Marikina river every day.
The Cemo also checks the water quality every month, together with experts from the University of the Philippines and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, added Villamena.
“The good thing is [the Marikina river] is improving. From millions, now its pollutants are in the thousands,” he said.
To avoid polluting the Marikina river in the first place, the city issued Ordinance No. 10 in 1994, imposing a 96-meter legal easement, prohibiting the construction of buildings in areas beside the body of water.
“More than 30 meters of the banks of Marikina river… nothing is built there. It is only parks and open spaces,” said Villamena.
