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Friday, July 01, 2005
Pena: 'Dirty' job?
By Rox Pena
UNEMPLOYMENT rate in the country was at 12.9 percent as of April this year, according to the latest report of the National Statistics Office (NSO). That translates to around 4.786 million Filipinos who are out of work.
With globalization, companies are forced to cut cost to become competitive and some resort to downsizing. Others move their operations to other countries with lower labor cost, which again make a lot of people jobless. Recently, I got a call from my contacts in Cavite who asked for my help in disposing of voluminous documents. When I inquired why they have so much waste, she said their company is closing down their Philippine operations, which will affect around 700 employees.
Whenever I am approached by friends for an assistance in finding jobs, I refer them to companies I know that can offer help. But I also I advise them to start their own small business, and I recommend the one I am most familiar with - RECYCLING! I usually get funny remarks as initial reaction. Most people know this business as simply "bote-dyaryo" or a junkshop. Nobody wants to be called a "basurero."
Once I start explaining the earning potential of this "dirty" job, they begin to listen. Besides showing computations in pesos and cents, I share the story of people who made it big in this "unglamorous" industry. One such an experience was when I gave a briefing to a group of wastepaper traders and junkshop operators in a hotel in Makati. I was surprised when I saw some of them arriving in luxury cars, wearing expensive jewelries. What's more, two of the supposed participants are out of the country for vacation. May pera nga sa basura!
Can't forget too a simple guy who only used an XLT jeepney for buying and selling scrap materials. He came to me and proudly related that he was able to send his children to college because of his little business. I also know of at least two junkshop owners who started small eventually bought their own delivery trucks. There's also this ordinary lady in her 50s who earns at least P50,000 a month by buying waste in Davao and selling them to recycling plants in Luzon.
At present, there is a big demand for recyclable materials. There is a guaranteed market. For wastepaper, most of the requirement of the industry is imported from other countries. There is no enough local supply because most Filipinos are not yet segregating their waste. Same is true for plastic and metals. Local recyclers even have to compete with foreign scrap buyers like China.
We Kapampangans are extremely lucky. We have in our province the big recyclers and buyers of waste. This is a big incentive for kabalens to go into the scrap business. The hauling cost is low. San Miguel Corporation has just put up a billion-peso, state-of-the-art PET plastic bottle recycling plant in the City of San Fernando. Trust International Paper Corporation (Tipco), the country's biggest buyer of wastepaper, is in Mabalacat. We have steel mills in Apalit, Pampanga. HMR Philippines and Semi-Recycling, the major buyers of scrap computers and electronic equipment, are based inside the Clark Special Economic Zone.
To give a hint on how big the "junkshop" industry is, I was able to get a copy of the report of the Metro Manila Linis Ganda cooperatives. Their group is composed of at least 500 junkshops from Metro Manila and has around 3,700 eco-aides, bodega helpers and drivers who earn at least P200 a day. In 2003, their association was able to recover 209,700 tons of recyclable waste with a value of P267 million. They started in 1983 with only 10 junkshops and a measly P15,000 capital borrowed from TLRC.
Republic Act 9003 requires mandatory segregation of waste at source. Many cities and municipalities have passed ordinances on solid waste management and some have started implementing their programs. With this development, more recyclable waste will be recovered and sold to buyers. So, anyone interested to get into this "dirty" job?
(July 1, 2005 issue)
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