Saturday, July 26, 2008 City keen on learning waste management By Rimaliza Opiña
HOW Loakan-Liwanag made it to the list of four barangays that attained 100 percent compliance in waste segregation was not a stroke of luck but diligence in separating biodegradable from other wastes.
Appointed recently by the City Council to make a report on how segregation is done in their barangay for possible implementation in other barangays, Loakan-Liwanag village chief Fred Fangonon said earthworms and fruit flies are needed to guarantee biodegradable waste now piling up in everyone's backyard does not give out a putrid smell.
"You do not even have to own a large patch of land to make compost," Fangonon said, "for even a bucket of soil, spread out at the back of a house can accommodate the amount of biodegradable waste produced in a common household."
He said because of the compost generated, one could even have an organic garden right in his backyard.
"Composting is sustainable. Neither machine nor commercial additives which eventually add up to the cost of fertilizers is used," Fangonon said.
Fangonon started composting in 1989. His compost area is located on top of his septic tank. Because it is located a few meters away from their kitchen sink, vegetable and fruit peelings and other biodegradable materials are thrown to the soil everyday and are left to decompose.
Fangonon does not recommend digging a pit for biodegradable waste for this only contributes to the formation of leacheate or fluid from decomposing garbage. If left out in the open and air-dried, and with the aid of nature's agents of decomposition like earthworms and fruit flies, waste is easier transformed into compost.
He said his neighbors are now doing the same practice, adding that one of his neighbors who has been using compost for his vegetable garden showed his plants were healthier and bore more fruit.
Compost can also be used for potted plants. Gloria Cacdac, also a resident of Loakan-Liwanag collects leftover food, fruit and vegetable peelings, fish scale from her boarders. These are directly spread out on the potted plants. In a matter of weeks, flowers and other ornamental plants bloomed and grew faster.
Fangonon said fertilizer made from compost is of excellent quality. While the process of decomposition may emit smell, he said this is tolerable.
To accommodate the amount of biodegradable waste produced in Baguio, Fangonon said the city should look for landowners who own a large patch of land and who will agree for the production of compost fertilizer.
The city currently operates a composting machine at the Irisan dumpsite where biodegradable wastes from the market are processed.
