Heydays of huge garbage dump over for scavengers
Heydays of huge garbage dump over for scavengers
By Lara Parpan
SMOKEY MOUNTAIN, Philippines (AFP): The putrid smell from the gargantuan dump, once a humiliating symbol of the Philippines' poverty, has at last been replaced by a blanket of soft green grass on its summit.
The 21-hectare (50-acre) dump-cum-shanty-town beside Manila Bay, which was ordered shut in 1993 by President Fidel Ramos but which residents say continued to operate until June 1995, is now ready to be reborn under a government redevelopment plan.
But the dump's closure, while removing a thorny image problem for the authorities, ended decades of lucrative scavenging for almost three generations of families which have lived at Smokey Mountain since it first opened in 1954.
Prior to its closure, about 1,200 tons of the 5,000-tons of garbage produced daily by this metropolis with eight million residents, was dumped here, waste management authorities say.
The result was a veritable mountain of trash which grew up, attracting scavengers who slowly became residents of the dump- town, embarrassing officials and Manila residents when Smokey Mountain gained worldwide notoriety.
Despite its rudimentary amenities, Smokey Mountain was years ahead of the Greens. Recycling became a byword here long before it caught on in the West, and near its summit, a row of junk shops towers over the dwindling pile of refuse.
Amid the squalor of the shanties huddled together on the huge garbage heap, order somehow reigns in Julie Apilado's junk shop. Sacks of used paper, cans, bottles, plastic and scrap metal, all consigned to designated areas, occupy every nook and cranny of Apilado's "yard."
"I learned about recycling from the people who bought garbage from us," said the 39-year-old mother of three, who has lived here for 32 years.
A puzzled look crosses her face when asked if she's an environmentalist. "I'm not sure," she says.
Apilado says earnings have dropped from 4,000 pesos (US$154) a day to 1,500 pesos ($58) since dumping was halted at Smokey Mountain.
To augment sagging income, three pushcarts and four pedicabs make rounds collecting recyclable garbage from Manila's streets, which is then sold to large factories which have a use for the material.
A nearby day-care center founded by a French Jesuit priest teaches Rosemary, 12, and other former scavengers how to paint shirts and make greeting cards from recycled paper after school, in the hope this will prevent them from moving on to other dump sites.
Rosemary used to be one of the 1,300 child scavengers who began scouring the dump when her mother first took her there when she was nine. Her father, also a scavenger, died from a lung disease several years ago.
Felisa, 35, says her husband barely makes enough to meet the needs of their three children, driving a pedicab in city streets for a fraction of the money he made as a scavenger.
But she concedes life has become more healthy for her and her family since the dumping stopped.
"The toxic fumes have disappeared, my children cough less, and maybe the good thing is that people have learned to look for other livelihoods," she says. "I can't believe that we put up with the smell for so many years."
But she and 1,600 families living on the dump's fringes have rejected the government's offer of temporary housing nearby. About 1,300 families have moved to the new site, while 200 other families were resettled elsewhere.
The government redevelopment plans include permanent housing for all of them, several port-related projects and an "environment friendly" incinerator.
Gloria, 43, who lived with her family for 10 years at Smokey Mountain, washes clothes outside her new one-room lodging at the temporary housing site. She and her husband, who still scavenges for trash nearby, resisted relocation for three years before giving in.
"The president has spoken, I know the project is going to push through," she says, as she awaits government's promise of 4,000 pesos in capital which the family intends to use to open a small grocery.