NOVA MYREL F.

RECIMO
BTVTED CSS 3
EGE 311 PEOPLE AND THE EARTH’S ECOSYSTEM

Module 2

Human Impacts in the Environment

Lesson 1
Application

1. What is happening in this picture?

The photo shows people—mainly displaced/marginalized rural workers—picking

through trash at the Smoky Mountain in Payatas landfill in the Manila. They are looking
mainly for scraps of plastics and metals that they can sell.

As I have observed, the picture looks untidy with those mounting solid
wastes that surrounds the area. Some people were picking up trash while
holding bags or sacks where they put the picked ones inside. Some were
watching or maybe they are companions of those people who keeps
searching and picking for trash. Also, there are excavating equipment around
specifically, backhoes and bulldozers. I don’t really know what the backhoes
were doing, I have no idea if they are cleaning the area or just piling up some
more trash around, also, maybe those backhoes are only compressing the
trashes to maximize space. All I can say is, those people are considered as
less-fortunate where they depend on the plastics and metals they can pick to
NOVA MYREL F. RECIMO
BTVTED CSS 3
EGE 311 PEOPLE AND THE EARTH’S ECOSYSTEM

earn money from it. Also, this is actually a disaster for both human health and
environmental preservation.

2. What valuable environmental service does such scavenging provide?

The three basic types of environmental services are disposal services,

which reflect the functions of the natural environment as an absorptive sink for
residuals, productive services, which reflect economic functions, and
consumer or consumptive services, which provide for the physiological and
recreational needs of humans. One thing that is very common in the
Philippines is the scavengers in Payatas. Payatas is an open dumpsite in
Manila where there are people who were promised to be given a low-cost
housing development and an industrial zone yet the promise of better life for
the scavengers remained unfulfilled. The scavenging became their only
source of livelihood. The scavengers had a better chance of surviving from
poverty through recovering and recycling wastes, and few became traders
and producers. Scavenging are for those who are less-capable of being
jumpers (hired by junk shop owners who comes by with the bulldozers
levelling the wastes).

Scavenging provides the minimum needs of the people around the

dumpsite—they sell it to junk shops, they receive the money, the junk shops
then processes the wastes and sell it to larger markets such as market which
recycles/reproduce a useful thing through a piece of garbage. It helped the
economic status in Manila at minimal point. From scavenging, there are few
who became an actual entrepreneur or traders. Moreover, such scavenging
helped reduce solid wastes and contributed a big part of solid waste
management that they enabled the raw materials being processed into a
useful thing. Surely, it does create a poverty reduction but it is too risky for
people’s health. Some were run over by bulldozers, some were burnt through
flaming plastics, and some were accidentally injured by small pieces of
metals. Therefore, the government have a law for treating wastes as assets
which includes strategies for investment, redistribution, internalization. At the
NOVA MYREL F. RECIMO
BTVTED CSS 3
EGE 311 PEOPLE AND THE EARTH’S ECOSYSTEM

same time, the scavengers are required to bring their identification cards and
trucks are to pay entrance fees to become as an option if they want to risk
their health and to control the open-access regime and both the local
government and low-income groups receive benefits vice versa.

3. Do you think this is the result of urbanization and environmental

conversion?

Urbanization is the increase in number of people living and working in a

city. Buildings and more infrastructures were built which results to rural-to-
urban migration. One of the human activities is environmental conversion
which is the changing of agricultural into a non-agricultural land. Poor air and
water quality, insufficient water availability, waste-disposal problems, and high
energy consumption are exacerbated by the increasing population density
and demands of urban environments.

Yes, the dumpsite itself is a result of urbanization and environmental

conversion. As the population rises, more wastes exist from typical factories
and common residents. Intensive urban growth can lead to greater poverty,
with local governments unable to provide services for all people in all
statuses. Concentrated energy use leads to greater air pollution with
significant impact on human health. Automobile exhaust produces elevated
lead levels in urban air. It can magnify the risk of environmental hazards such
as flash flooding. Pollution and physical barriers to root growth promote loss
of urban tree cover. Animal populations are inhibited by toxic substances,
vehicles, and the loss of habitat and food sources. However, the dumpsite in
Payatas had at least combat poverty by promoting economic development
and job creation through scavenging. Also, involving local community and
local government gave importance to value the environmental services
provided by scavenging.