MANILA, Philippines — Household waste disposal can be money-making, money-saving and job generating. Just like what they are doing in Las Piñas City.

We were invited recently to see the different waste disposal and livelihood programs being undertaken in Las Piñas largely through the initiative of former Congresswoman Cynthia A. Villar through the Villar Foundation.

One of her pet projects is converting the kitchen wastes into organic fertilizer. In Brgy. Pamplona II, we visited the biggest composting facility in the city administered by Roberto Villalon, a former chairman of the barangay.

He showed us six big rotary steel composters, each of which can convert the raw materials into organic fertilizer in seven days. Each composter can produce 700 to 1,000 kilos of organic fertilizer a month.

Actually, the composting facility in Pamplona II is just one of the composting facilities. There is at least one composting machine in each of the 20 barangays in the city.

Mrs. Villar said that they sell the compost at only P3 per kilo or P120 per 40-kilo sack. This is much cheaper than the organic fertilizers usually sold in the market.

Among the big buyers are the farmers from Nueva Ecija who use the organic fertilizer for producing organic farm produce.

Mrs. Villar explained that the establishment of composting facilities in the different barangays is one way of maintaining a clean environment. Aside from that the city government saves a lot of money from hauling the garbage in the community to the dump site in San Pedro, Laguna.

She said that the composting facilities help reduce the garbage that has to be disposed to the dump site which is very costly. She said that the government spends about P11,000 per truck of garbage delivered to the dumpsite. Six thousand pesos is paid per trip of the truck that hauls the garbage. Then there is the P5,000 that is paid per trip of the truck as tipping fee to the owner of the private dumpsite.

The composting project is also providing livelihood to the residents in the different villages. There are part-time workers who collect the garbage from each house six days of the week. They load the kitchen wastes and other garbage in large buckets that are well sealed. And the 70 garbage collectors load them in their pedal-powered tricycles.

The raw garbage passes through a presser so that the excess moisture is removed. Then these are mixed with other ingredients such as coco peat or coir dust which makes the resulting compost very friable and excellent for enriching the soil for planting various crops.

The wet garbage collected from the households as well as from the public market is passed through a mechanical presser that is found in each of the composting facilities in the city.

By the way, the coco coir dust that is incorporated in the organic fertilizer is a byproduct of another livelihood-generating project of Mrs. Villar. This is the production of what they call coco net which is used in erosion control.

In the coco net project, the workers gather the buko husks thrown away by those selling young coconut or “buko” in many parts of Metro Manila. The coconut husks are decorticated and the fiber collected for making the coco net.

In retrospect, Mrs. Villar said it was not easy to convince the residents to segregate their household wastes into biodegradable and non-biodegradable materials. About 75 percent did not want to adopt the garbage segregation system because that was something new to them. They thought it was impractical and it only added more work to the people in the households.

Mrs. Villar, however, persisted. She asked the religious people to help her convince the homemakers and family men to do garbage segregation in their homes.

Today, however, after the residents saw the benefits of segregating the biodegradable from the non-biode-gradable household wastes, they have become advocates of the practice.

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MANGO SEMINAR ON FEBRUARY 12 – On Sunday, February 12, Antonio S. Rola will conduct a whole day seminar on mango production. This will be at the AANI Weekend Market at St. Vincent Seminary on Tandang Sora St., Quezon City.

He will discuss the GAP or Good Agricultural Practices in growing mangoes. He will talk about the new Carabao mango strains, the new national recommended planting distances, proper orchard maintenance, pest management, proper orchard maintenance, flower and fruit induction, balanced plant nutrition, correct pruning, best marketing strategies and postharvest treatments.

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AGRI-KAPIHAN HELD EVERY SATURDAY — The Agri-Kapihan is now held every Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 12 noon at the AANI Weekend Market at the St. Vincent Seminary on Tandang Sora, Quezon City. The Agri-Kapihan is a forum that is open free to people who are interested in farming.

The Agri-Kapihan is a venue where old friends renew their friendship, or it is where people meet new friends. There are usually two main speakers on selected timely topics. Besides the speakers, the attendees can interact with the other attendees.

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KAUNLARAN SA AGRIKULTURA RADIO PROGRAM – Tune in to radio station DWWW, 774 khz on the AM band, and listen to the Kaunlaran Sa Agrikultura radio program hosted by Tony Rola, Nina Manzanares Agu and Zac B. Sarian. This is aired every Sunday from 4:30 to 7:30 in the morning.

The radio program is hosted by Tony Rola, Nina Manzanares, Agu and Zac B. Sarian.