San Carlos City Lifestyle Change Program

INTRODUCTION. The problem in solid waste and its management has become a genuine concern of the
City of San Carlos. The rapidly swelling population, increasing urbanization and intensifying economic
activities have all contributed to the generation of solid waste.

In response to this problem, the Local Government Unit of San Carlos City has adopted measures to
anticipate the expansion of solid waste management services, provision of a more cost-effective garbage
collection and hauling, development and implementation of innovative solid waste disposal practice.

On February 14, 2002, the Local Chief Executive, Honorable City Mayor, EUGENIO JOSE V. LACSON
has passed an Executive Order No. 9, Series of 2002 for the creation of the San Carlos City’s Solid
Waste Management Board and was further amended re: membership of its composition through
Executive Order No. 13, Series of 2006 on February 03, 2006.
This is the very first step when the city embarked on the mandatory compliance set by the Philippine
Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 or Republic Act 9003.
Since then, regular solid waste management board meetings were conducted to discuss the second step
of drafting the solid waste management plan (Section 12 provision of R.A. 9003) and simultaneously the
city has implemented the Information, Education and Communication (IEC) campaign in partnership with
the GENESYS Foundation which started in year 2003.
Sometime October, 2004, the Chairman of the SWM Board has designated a solid waste management
officer, to take charge in the facilitation of all solid waste management related concerns such as;

1. Drafting and submission of the Ten (10) Year SWM Plan to NSWMC, Manila
2. Establishment of Final Disposal Facility
3. Plan for the rehabilitation and closure of the existing Villarante Dumpsite
4. Local and International networking and other SWM related activities

Such designation, established mechanism leading to its institutionalization necessary to sustaining the
solid waste management program encompassing every activity thereof which is in accordance with
provisionbs of R.A. 9003 to include but not limited to;
1. Establishment & Operationalization of City’s Final Disposal Facility “The Eco-Center”
2. Rehabilitation, Closure and Post Closure Initiative at the Villarante Dumpsite
3. Solid Waste Environmental Education Monitoring & Follow Through
4. Implementation of other Environmental Laws

THE BOARD. The Solid Waste Management Board is the policy making body which sets the overall solid
waste management program thrust geared towards the institutionalization and ensures sustainability of its
operation in accordance with the City’s (10) Year Solid Waste Management Plan which is in harmony with
the provision of R.A. 9003 and other environmental related laws.

IEC COMPONENT. The passing of R.A. 9003, or the Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, gives
impetus to local governments to address solid waste concerns in their locality. In response, the City of
San Carlos implemented a Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Program and established an
Integrated Waste Management System. A City with a total population of 129,000, with a total land area
of 45,150 ha., the current per capita waste generation of 0.5 kg./day is alarming even for a small city like
San Carlos. While the City makes use of an integrated system in garbage collection and disposal
composed of a sanitary landfill, Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), and Composting in a single area
called the Eco-Center, it recognized that a technical solution is not sufficient and that a long-term
solution lies in changing people’s attitude and orientation towards waste. The LGU established
citizen responsibility as the primary mechanism of its Solid Waste Management Program through a
project entitled, “Ecological Solid Waste Management Lifestyle Change Project.” The aim of the project is
to promote change in values and attitudes of the people of San Carlos towards environmental
responsibility through effective Communication, Education and Advocacy. Key objectives of the project
are:

 Increase awareness and responsibility among citizens of the city on solid waste management
leading to minimization of wastes generated at source and resulting to at least 25% in waste
diversion;
 Enhance people’s involvement in solid waste management by educating all households and
institutions on the different methods of processing waste.
 Inculcate change in behavior and values among the citizens through the utilization of locally-
formulated IEC materials that are adaptive to the local culture.

The ESWM Lifestyle Change Project is very INNOVATIVE due to the unique strategies it employed:

BEHAVIORAL CHANGE APPROACH. The Local Government of San Carlos went beyond the
conventional solid waste management program of using an efficient collection system and infrastructure.
Instead, it embarked on a comprehensive education and advocacy that sought to change people’s
behavior towards responsible waste management. While information, education and communication is
enunciated in R.A. 9003, the Behavioral Change Approach is based on an education platform that
enables the target audience to learn the positive or negative consequences of their action. It further
focuses on the benefits derived from positive waste management practice thus leading to individual and
group motivation.

INDIGENIZATION OF IEC MATERIALS. The central feature of the Lifestyle Change Project is the
utilization of IEC materials that were adapted to the local culture and condition. While gleaned from varied
materials such as the provisions of R.A. 9003, and materials from SWAP, and other sources, these are
unique as these were distilled to come up with a comprehensive module that makes use of the local
language and condition. Different materials were designed for individuals or households, schools, and
even a Barangay Training Manual. The main module, “Giya sa Insaktong Pagdumala sa Biya (Guide to
Correct Management of Waste),” utilizes a Flipchart which is very innovative not only because of the
completeness of its content but that it allows ease in setting up and teaching of solid waste management
even in remote areas.

PARTICIPATORY TECHNOLOGY. The local government recognized that success of solid waste
management does not just lie on the technical methods in disposing of waste. Thus, people’s participation
was utilized wherein all sectors of the community were targeted to become involved in waste diversion at
their level. These include the private/industrial/agricultural sector, the schools, the eighteen barangays,
and all households. Citizens are further given the responsibility to manage waste in the village level.

STRATEGIC AND MASSIVE IEC, ADVOCACY. To capacitate people and instill behavioral change, IEC
was not just conducted in all community sectors but done in a systematic manner. For every year, there is
a specific IEC thrust with the first year campaign directed to the lowland urban areas, year 2 for lowland
and upland rural areas, year 3 geared towards monitoring and evaluation of Barangay SWM
implementation, and year 4 directed towards participative installation of an M & E system.

Positive Results and Impact

The length of time of implementation of the Lifestyle Change Project has already produced tangible
results and is the basis of the implementation and success of the technical aspect of the program,
particularly the establishment of the Eco-Center.

Waste Minimization and Increased Waste Diversion. Due to the focus of the Lifestyle Change Project
to promote waste diversion at source, such source segregation is already evidently practiced with
households, industries, schools, barangays, and different community institutions doing their own
respective SWM initiatives. Regular waste characterization revealed the decreasing trend in waste
contamination reaching to only 3% in non-biodegradables currently. Waste contamination in bio-
degradables is also down to 3%. This makes it easier for the garbage collection team and the Eco-Center
to further segregate and divert waste. Currently, waste diversion at the Eco-Center reached an impressive
63% which is more than the 25% required by R.A. 9003. Of this 63%, 46% is bio-degradable and is thus
directed for composting, and the other 17% is for recycling. Thus, only 37% of the total garbage is
considered residuals and goes to the landfill, thus increasing the lifespan of such landfill to 20 years.
 Waste Profile

Income and Savings Generation. The effective segregation at the source level made it possible for the
City to set up an efficient waste diversion at the disposal level in the Eco-Center. From the composting
effort of the 46% biodegradables, income generated averages P2,000.00 per day which is already
sufficient to pay for the labor cost of ten workers employed in the Eco-Center. Recovery of recyclable
contents resulted to an average income of P12,000.00 per month. The income is put in a Trust Fund for
further SWM use. The recovery also resulted to savings of 1,500 cu.m. of landfill volume. The IEC
campaign also educates people on recycling techniques that could let them earn income. These
teachings are incorporated in the Barangay Training Manual. As a result, minimal amount is gained by
some households and community associations out of this livelihood endeavor. In Brgy. Quezon, livelihood
activity from re-use and recycling reached P10,262.00 in a six-month period. In the public elementary and
secondary schools’ SWM initiative alone, they were able to segregate a total of forty thousand kilos and
gained income amounting to forty four thousand pesos from July 2006 to January 2007, with the
involvement of 8,768 teachers and students.

Increased Citizen Responsibility. The waste diversion efficiency expresses the fact that citizen
responsibility is increasing with most households doing segregation efforts. This also indicates that the
avowed goal of changing lifestyle that promotes individual and household responsibility in solid waste
management is taking root. In this manner, the project has significantly changed people’s attitude and
orientation towards waste. Policies of the government, whether those stipulated in R.A. 9003 as well as
the LGU policy of “no segregation, no collection,” could not be realized without people’s new knowledge
and changed behavior in segregating and diverting waste. Proof of such change is exhibited in the
different manner by which community associations and institutions are initiating their own respective
SWM initiatives. All eighteen Barangays have been covered in the IEC campaign. Out of these, nine (9)
have already set-up their own Citizens Monitoring and Feedback Mechanism (CMFM). All barangays
have also established their own Materials Recovery Facility.

Promotion of People’s Participation and Empowerment

The primary reason for the implementation of the SWM Lifestyle Change Project is people empowerment.
The project is the foundation of the comprehensive solid waste management program. In fact, without
people’s participation and empowerment, the SWM program is just a technical matter of collection and
disposal that is a very costly sole responsibility of the LGU and devoid of any consideration of the social
context of the garbage problem. The Lifestyle Change project therefore defined the social component of
garbage and thereby requires the involvement of the various sectors of the community.

LGU-NGO Partnership in Service Delivery. Even at the beginning of the solid waste management
initiative, the local government recognized that service delivery could be done by other community
institutions. It manifested its commitment to collaborative and participatory form of governance by entering
into partnership with a Non-Government Organization, GENESYS Foundation, to implement the initial
phase of the SWM program—the information, education and communication initiative. The technical
aspect of the Solid Waste Management System, particularly the Eco-Center, is provided with technical
assistance by DED, the German Development Service. The Solid Waste Management Board recognized
that such technical component/facilities are useless if the source of the waste, households and
institutions, do not exercise responsibility in segregation. The Foundation is already a member of the
Solid Waste Management Board due to its thrust in environmental protection. The Foundation then
designed the IEC initiative to go beyond just the simple manner of providing knowledge but was directed
towards changing people’s attitude and behavior, emphasizing early on project planning and design that
waste management is people’s responsibility. It is important to note that the decision to make IEC as the
primary initiative is to highlight the need to capacitate and empower people to responsibly manage waste
at the source level. There was a realization that capacity-building leads people to develop a sense of
ownership.

Transfer of Responsibility and Ownership to the People. The Lifestyle Change Project then
proceeded to be strategic in the delivery of IEC by focusing on key areas starting with the lowland urban
area in the first as this is the most populous location and which produces the highest volume of waste.
Focusing delivery on key institutions such as churches/religious groups and schools also followed as
these are the community institutions where education is the major mechanism used in promoting
attitudinal and behavioral change. One of the basic evidences of ownership is in the educational sector
wherein the whole public school system initiated their own waste diversion system and initiated SWM
activities such as Poster-making contests, Quizzes, and incorporation of SWM in the Curriculum.

The succeeding focus in diffusing the Lifestyle project to cover all eighteen barangays of the City is an
effort to develop full community ownership particularly in the village level. The capacity-building initiatives
were directed towards letting each barangay develop their own SWM facilities and social mechanisms.
The most notable is that each Barangay further diffused the SWM to Puroks resulting to the establishment
of Purok MRFs. In one barangay which has a limited budget for SWM, these Purok MRFs were
established through a Bayanihan system where village members made labor contributions. Training on
alternative livelihood promoting recycling which is a purely locally-designed initiative, further enhanced
lower-income households’ contribution to waste diversion as well as an attempt at economic
empowerment. Capacitating and empowering the community was also done by training community
members such as Barangay Tanods, BHWs, Purok Leaders and Daycare workers to become IEC
providers in their respective villages. These community volunteers, called Catalysts, are the ones who
directly conduct the house-to-house campaign.

Citizen Monitoring and Feedback Mechanism. One of the most notable mechanisms of the Lifestyle
Change Project that is solely locally-created and designed to strengthen people’s participation and
develop community ownership is the establishment of the Citizen Monitoring and Feedback Mechanism
(CMFM) in the Barangays. The mechanism involves a household-level recording of waste disposed and
uploaded to the Barangay level monitoring report. Managed by the people’s themselves, it provides a
community effort to monitor their implementation of solid waste management.

Transferability and Sustainability

The Project is assured to continue regardless of changes in political leadership and support from external
agencies.

Changed Behavior as a Mechanism for Sustainability. The whole initiative of capacitating people
towards behavioral change to promote waste diversion at source is already a process of ensuring
sustainability. People’s attempt at such segregation at source is already a manifestation of change in
people’s attitude and orientation towards waste. Hopefully, continuous advocacy and education would
lead to internalization of solid waste management. The collective approach of the Lifestyle Change
Project through community-level responsibility also guarantees sustainability due to group pressure and
demand for conformity.

LGU-Community Partnership. It is to be underscored that the decision of the LGU to make capacity-
building and behavioral change to be the foundation of its Solid Waste Management Program is to convey
that the garbage problem, waste disposal, and waste diversion are not just the local government’s
responsibility but that of the community. Partnership in solid waste management assures that the
government’s limited resources could be further stretched to several years more compared to the
conventional technical method that drains such resources. Financial sustainability is also evident with
regards to the ability of the Lifestyle Change Project to saturate the whole city in an effective and efficient
way.

Institutionalization. The actions of the different community institutions in waste diversion at source and
their attempts at establishing their own SWM programs are manifestations of institutionalization. As in
schools and religious institutions, educating and changing people’s orientation and attitude towards waste
are independently done by these institutions with less need for government resources and effort.

One other significant move by the LGU to institutionalize the Lifestyle Change Project is to integrate the
IEC Team from Genesys Foundation with the Solid Waste Management Office (SWMO). With this
integration, capacity-building and advocacy would be a regular component of the entire Solid Waste
Management Program to sustain the education of people.

The Lifestyle Change Project has not without difficulties in implementation. Initially, most Barangays were
resistant to the implementation of the SWM as it requires change. This was resolved through community
consultations and dialogue. Barangay leaders were also invited to attend the Solid Waste Management
Board meetings.

All the processes employed by the Lifestyle Change Project are replicable. Primarily, it is important that
cultural considerations should govern in the design of IEC materials. Thus, it is important that the
presentation of the message should be done in the level of the target audience. This means that local
dialect is a must in areas where there is less formal education. In the same manner, approaches in
community institutions such as schools should make use of the existing system and curriculum as the
vehicle for the message.

The replicability as well as the universality of the contents of the IEC materials and capacity-building
modules could be gauged through the interest shown by different agencies and local government units to
use the said materials. The “Giya sa Insaktong Pagdumala sa Biya” (Guide to Correct Management of
Waste) module was so innovative and remarkable that many visitors from other LGUs and government
agencies would ask the City Mayor outright if they could be given a copy. A Seminar Room has been
established within the Eco-Center that serves in educating visitors about the SWM program of the city. To
date, seminars within the Eco-Center were provided to a total of 1,906 individual visitors, 45 LGUs, 28
government agencies, and 18 institutions. The approach of the Local Government of San Carlos in
initiating the Lifestyle Change Project to establish partnership in solid waste management is an example
that could be followed by other LGUs in designing their own solid waste management program.

ESTABLISHMENT OF ECO-CENTER. After initiating the Ecological Waste Management Lifestyle

Change Project which had promoted to the change in values and attitudes of the people of San Carlos
towards environmental responsibility through effective IEC, the city opted to establish an Eco-Center
where an integrated waste management system are installed.

The Eco-Center is a one stop shop disposal and recycling option for San Carlos City residents and
businesses. The facility includes state-of-the-art 6,600 sq.m. Sanitary Landfill for municipal solid waste.
Centralized Material Recovery Facility, Office and Motorpool, Perimeter Fence, Composting Area and
Waste Water Treatment Facility. This integrated waste management system has a total budget of only
P7.5 million.

The approached or technology used in the project is entirely a pioneering application since the system is
an integration of a waste processing area for biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste, a sanitary
landfill utilizing indigenous local materials such as; clay for lining system and gravel drain instead of High
Density Polyethelyn (HDPE) liner and leachate piping collection and other innovative approach on the
project.

This new waste processing and final disposal facility is the first in Western Visayas commended by the
DENR-EMB Region VI and considered as among the few LGU’s nationwide to operate a sanitary landfill
as well as eradicating the ill effects and hazards of mismanagement of waste.

The fine-tuning of the daily operation in the Eco-Center facility coupled with the modification of collection
system and schedule is initiated for the entire city (urban and rural barangays) to further improve
efficiency and effectiveness in terms of logistical optimization.

The project has the replication potentials since it is very practical, affordable and relatively income
generating. This draws a lot of attention to the LGU’s in the entire country. Hundreds of LGU’s from Luzon
(as far as Isabela Province) and major cities in Mindanao have visited to observe how the project has
been undertaken for possible replication in their own locality.
All constructions and improvements at the Eco-Center were done in accordance of the Republic act 9003
also known as the “Ecological Solid Waste Management act of 2000”. The engineered landfill and other
Eco-center facilities are under the technical consultancy services through the assistance of Engr. Klaus
Hanuschke from the German Development Service (DED).

FINAL CLOSURE OF OLD DUMPSITE. With the establishment of the Eco-Center as the final disposal
area for the residents of the City of San Carlos, the city has allocated P2.0 million pesos for the closure of
Villarante Dumpsite as part of the compliance of RA 9003.

The garbage disposal at Villarante Dumpsite in San Carlos city started on the mid 90’s and the situation is
obviously an uncontrolled dumping given the fact that there is no law yet establishing specific guidelines
on proper waste disposal. Although, there were already existing ordinance specific to anti-littering and
other sanitation related legislation, however, there’s no specific mandates when it comes to establishing
final disposal facility & safe closure and rehabilitation plan to existing dumpsites.

In year 2000, finally the Solid Waste Management Act has been enacted setting specific guidelines for the
safe closure plan of open and controlled dumpsite and simultaneously establishing sanitary landfill as final
disposal facility.

In year 2002, the city rehabilitated the existing open dump site with an area of 2.5 hectares which has
been operating since the early 90’s. The open dumpsite approximately 1 km. from the urban center, was
rehabilitated through biological treatment technology introduced by Mr. William Goodings, a Canadian
Executive Service Organization (CESO) consultant tapped by the city government. This particular
technology is a natural process that would take about six (6) months or less for the organic waste to
stabilize.

The old dumpsite was converted into a controlled dumpsite in August 2006 and cease its waste delivery
acceptance on September 13, 2007 which is right after the opening of the ECO-Center, the city’s waste
processing and final disposal facility.

The physical closure was then finally initiated in May, 2008, conforming the National Solid Waste
Management Commission’s (NSWMC) guidelines on safe closure plan. The entire dumpsite was covered
with a 45 cm. clay material cover with an addition of a 15 cm. top soil cover to allow vegetation growth to
protect soil from erosion during heavy run-off. Thus stabilizing slope protection layer.

In addition, five (5) gas vents has been installed for possible methane migration and also to control
methane gas generation which is very minimal in the case of Villarante dumpsite.

As part of the process, negotiations with the landowners of the area regarding the acquisition of 18 lots
were successfully initiated.

Additionally, the LGU bought a three (3) hectares lot for resettlement of the adjusted squatter area. The
closure and post closure management plan was finalized and submitted to the EMB-6, DENR on April 08,
2008 in which the dumpsite will be converted into an Eco-Park.

Finally, the dumpsite has been closed by virtue of the Authority to Close (ATC) with No.20-0917 issued by
DENR-EMB Region VI after complying with the requirements set by the National Solid Waste
Management Commission’s (NSWMC) Resolution No.5, “Adoption of the Guidelines on the Safe Closure
and Rehabilitation of Disposal Facilities”, the approved Authority to Close (ATC) was granted on
September 17, 2008 legitimizing the city’s physical closure.