Waste not, want not

We do not like to deal with waste, generally speaking. We want to make it disappear and not have to segregate. This is why some homes have or practice a zero-waste policy. And that means recycling everything rather than tossing it into the waste can. But that can only happen if you do not have single-use plastics and consciously use only reusables and recyclables. It’s quite difficult but we have found some solutions.

I met Olive Puentespina of Malagos Farm (and now Davao Biotech) on a trip to Davao in March last year. On previous trips we would only talk about her cheese and have some wine, but on this particular visit we talked about waste. And how much Davao has accumulated due to the rise of quick service restaurants, the pandemic sanitary practices and the increase in population, of course. Landfills are getting scarce and even banana peels (which I learned do not degrade as fast) are thrown on top soil by banana chip manufacturers, and the list goes on.

Olive and her late husband Dr. Bo went to work and started a waste conversion facility with Japanese technology in nearby Toril. Bo first mentioned this to me in 2018 when we met in Bangkok as Olive was being awarded as ASEAN Women Entrepreneur. I promised to visit the facility in Davao and finally fulfilled that promise last year, even if Bo had already passed a few months before. But the universe has its ways of making us meet again, and this time for another purpose. I finally got a composting set which has a pail, a compost primer and all you need to add to your household waste.

It is easy to think of composting fruit peel, vegetable discards and other natural waste but getting around to segregation and then throwing it in a common garbage chute is the next task.

In our building we have yet to sort and demand that waste be sorted before discarding. So even if you sort, it still gets mixed in with unsorted waste. Not a good incentive to keep doing it. And household staff get lazy and just toss everything for the garbage guy to deal with. Imagine that happening all over the country. This is why we have so much garbage.

Olive immediately sent me two kits which I alternately fill with fruit waste, vegetable discards and anything organic or nabubulok. Since we do not have much waste everyday, you fill it with a compost primer to prevent it from smelling. The cute pail has a cover and you can stack it so when the filled one goes to the farm to be emptied, I still have one for today’s wastes. So you may ask, what if I don’t have a farm? Empty it onto the ground in your community’s compost pit or in your backyard. The pail is a “purgatory” of sorts before the waste goes to organic heaven. If everyone in the city did this, we would have much less waste to deal with.

Senator Loren Legarda taught her whole barangay in Tagaytay how to segregate and sort waste, too. And if you visit this village today, you will find that people have become used to recycling, reusing stuff and reducing waste. As you reduce waste and consciously use less single-use plastic, you reduce everyone’s waste – from your home to the village to the town.

My own household staff was not convinced for a long time because it is a chore. Now, she is a convert and doing her bit in reducing, reusing and recycling. We have reduced our household waste to a fifth and still working on getting to zero. My neighbor Ros sends us her café’s spent grounds (the waste that is left after you get the juice out of coffee beans) and we mix it with our organic compost at the farm. She sets them aside in her walk-in chiller and sends them to us by the bag every week. It is a chore but it helps reduce waste that she has to send out to the town’s sanitary trucks.

Our coffee chaff (waste after milling coffee cherries) is now used to make carbonized coffee hull, which becomes organic fertilizer. Roasters also are wanting to send me their chaff to also be used at the farm. There are geeks who now make these coffee wastes into charcoal briquets for doing barbecues, just like coconut shell briquets.

The idea is to start small – in your household. If you start it, you will save on trash bags and make some compost in the process. Next, as it is a chore, you avoid using single use plastic and try to reduce what you have to throw in the city’s garbage trucks. It only needs a little time to explain to your staff how to sort and deal with waste. Then it becomes a good habit.

I took a foreigner (Romanian) friend to the Saturday market and he ate fresh mango, a viand of shrimps with shell and some papaya. After eating, he segregated his trash and threw them in the proper segregated containers which the market has conveniently provided. Recyclables, Nabubulok and Hindi nabubulok. He gingerly threw each piece of waste into the proper bin – because that is his habit. And it can be ours.

In Korea and Japan, children are taught at a young age how to segregate and throw waste. Yes, that is a lesson even in pre-school so you carry it through life. It is never too late to teach our children in school and follow it up at home.

You can start by checking what you buy and consume. And oh, do not put fresh meat, fish or crab shells in the compost bin. That is something you have to let the garbage guys deal with. Get a pail today and start a good habit of dealing with waste.

Waste not, want not. And if you waste some, toss it properly.