daniel bowman simon

For the past three months, I’ve spent every Wednesday at the Public Market (except once when I was at a peace corps seminar, and once when market day was cancelled due to fiesta. At first, I just bought vegetables and got to know all the vendors. There are some neat folks there, like the toothless old lady who has been peddling bananas since 1955. The vendors quickly realized that I always bring my own bag, and adamantly refuse their cellophane. And if I buy seaweed or mungo beans, they go directly into Tupperware (yup, it’s legit. Tupperware parties used to be huge here.)

Before I forget, you should know about the chemist turned pork vendor. He slaughters a pig at 2am before every market day (so that the meat doesn’t spoil without refrigeration.) This is only a problem because he’s my neighbor and the poor squealing pig woke me up and I could not go back to sleep. (Actually, that’s not the only problem. Being the vegetarian I am, I would much prefer if people stopped killing animals for food, but now I’m getting preachy.) So from that day on everyone in the market jokes that Mr. Pork has no manners, and that they will support me to pass an ordinance preventing swine murder after midnight.

When I felt a little more like a regular at the market (which doesn’t take much time here in the Philippines, and especially in Bohol,) I started bringing a bunch of small borrowed garbage pails to collect the biodegradable waste. I told everyone I was collecting it in order to turn their garbage into free, nutritious fertilizer for our garden. (A few vendors have decided this stuff would make great free pig feeds, and one guy asked if he could look through a pail for promising squash seeds.) With the help of some curious kids, I use my host mother’s pint-sized tricycle to haul all the stuff back to the compost pit we dug at my house. The tricycle has taken a couple comedic spills.

As my luck would have it, I’ve become known as the garbage collector. This is definitely not my goal. After all, I’m only here for less than another year. Part of the Peace Corps goal is to leave something sustainable, not just help out for a while and take off. So I have been doing this work as research, to figure out how the market works, and to help design a cleanup system, hopefully one that can be replicated in other similar markets.

The mayor has asked me for memos with my advice, and here is the latest. It may seem like a piece of cake to get this stuff implemented. But this is the Philippines. First we have to gather a group of people to discuss the memo. Next, if everyone can agree, room must be found in the meager budget. Then a bidding process might ensue for materials required. I’m sure that if we ever get the “tubs” there will be issues on where they will be stored, and so on and so forth. A compost area was finally constructed last week. But it’s too big for the piles to retain heat, and besides, it’s built out of hollow blocks on top of a huge trash pile. And it doesn’t help that the supposed market cleaner now has an affinity for the bottle and for setting fire to garbage piles. Nonetheless, I feel progress in the air.

Let me add one more preface to the memo. USAID has an on-going project in the Philippines providing technical assistance (read: non-financial assistance) on Solid Waste Management to selected Local Government Units. We are one of the recipients. Before I arrived, they helped draft a 10-Year Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan.

The 10-Year plan is more of an overall guide than a nitty-gritty instruction book. So for example, it will say that we should educate every neighborhood about solid waste, but doesn’t give us particular messages to convey or how to monitor if the people really learned anything. Kind of like going to a concert and trying to sing along with a song you’ve never heard before. (Not a perfect analogy, but the only other thing I can think of right now is the bible, and I’m not gonna go there.)

Well, I often get accused of having ideas that are not part of the 10-Year plan. This is my first memo where I’ve explicitly linked my suggestions to the 10-Year plan. And I should also mention that my language helper helped me translate this to Cebuano. Here goes:

Memo
Re: Public Market
Subject: Strategies for a clean, healthy market in compliance with The 10-Year Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan

According to the 10-Year Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan (Chapter 5.1.5 Activities and Implementation Schedule,) we are behind the 2004 schedule on “Procurement of waste receptacles for market & other public places.” 2005 is also the year scheduled for “LGU [Local Government Unit] collects 4 types of segregated waste from public market, institutions; transports biodegradable & recyclable waste to Municipal MRF, residual & special waste to SLF.”

Hopefully, this memo will help us implement these activities ASAP.

Vegetable Vendors:
Each vegetable vendor (including the women who sit on the concrete and the corn-on-the-cob vendors) should be provided a “tub” for biodegradable wastes, and a smaller container for non-biodegradable wastes. A “tub” is required for the biodegradable because most vendors prepare pre-cut vegetables at the market. And there is always some spoilage. (The vendors seem to know how to separate their wastes, but they should be refreshed once the system is in place.)

Market Cleaners:
In order to make sure the wastes are being properly sorted, and to make the job of the market cleaners easier and less disgusting, there should be one market cleaner assigned to the vegetable section DURING the market day. The cleaner should be there early enough to put out the containers when the vendors arrive. The cleaner should collect the biodegradable wastes at least three times, at 9am, 11am, and 1pm, to make the job more manageable and to make sure the vendors are properly separating. He or she can use the orange wheelbarrow for this purpose. (They should also make sure no non-biodegradable wastes have been mixed in.)

Compost Area:
Once the compost area is completed, this biodegradable waste can be deposited there. (Ideally, it would be chopped into small pieces with a machete for faster decomposition. However, we have enough composting area that this is not a necessity.

No need for a compost shredder:
A compost shredder seems to be a very bad investment for a municipality this size [10000 people], with the small volume of biodegradable market waste we have to manage. It is an unnecessary expense that is very expensive to operate, and very expensive to repair if it breaks.

Non-biodegradable wastes:
In the time they are not collecting biodegradable wastes, the cleaner can also collect the non-biodegradable waste in a separate container. Perhaps a handmade trash can on wheels. In this way, at the end of the day, cleanup should be very fast and easy.

Fish vendors:
There should also be garbage pails provided for the fish vendors. Mostly they bring home all their biodegradable wastes. But they leave many cellophane bags in puddles of water. The fish vendors also have a bad habit of throwing their wastes in the small muddy area behind them. They should be gently reminded that throwing trash there makes the job of the poor market cleaner disgusting and difficult. Also, throwing wastes there makes a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. (Perhaps if budget allows, that area could be dug out and covered with chicken wire or concreted.)

Regarding the shellfish vendors, there should be 2 extra tubs placed there so that the empty shells can be brought by wheelbarrow to the end of the wharf. They came from the sea and they can be safely returned to the sea, reducing the waste here on land and potential mosquito-breeding grounds.

Tire-material garbage bins:
The tire-material garbage bins should be removed from the market and stored behind the municipal hall, until a good purpose is found. These bins are an awkward shape. They quickly become filled or clogged, and they are heavy and difficult to empty. Also, psychologically, the people are already used to NOT sorting garbage they throw in those bins.

Next steps to a cleaner, healthier public market:
Once we have a good market cleaning system in place, we can start to plan projects such as:
*re-teaching the permanent store owners proper segregation
*cleaning the field behind the market in order to remediate the drainage and safety issues (a market-goer badly wounded his foot by stepping on broken glass last May 18th)
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P.S. Today I biked by of kids crouched on the ground. They told me they were pulling teeth out of a cow skull. So I asked why. “Just for fun, and where are you going?” “To take a bath in the sea.” At which point they stood up and ran past me. “Hey, where are you going?” “We want to watch you swim.” So be it.