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Background of the Problem
Water is a basic need and according to the United Nations access to it is also a human right. It is an essential part of daily life and in maintaining good health. Safe water is utilized by humans through sanitation, food production, and hydration. Unsafe drinking water can lead to so many serious health conditions and even death. Every year many people, most especially children, suffer from dehydration and electrolyte imbalances caused by diarrheal diseases. It might be an easily preventable problem, but still many people are seriously affected by this especially those living in poverty-stricken communities where water is considered a luxury. In these areas, water sources are usually communal or public and there is no purification method used for drinking water.
In Barangay Maras, there are a couple of different water sources used by the residents and most of them are communal and are not yet confirmed to be potable. The households situated near the highway get their drinking water from a dug wells with hand pump and a few would buy from the nearby water-refilling station. Some households are connected to the piped spring water system established by the Local Officials but the water is rationed and still limited. Along the highway, an average of 25-30 households share 1 water source. In the areas far from the main road, drinking water is taken from an open dug well or a protected spring. Purok Waling-Waling is the only purok that has no water source of its own and people would walk in distances even as far as 200 meters through dense grasslands and narrow roads on top of cliffs just to get water. In terms of water storage and purification, the residents utilize covered containers, which most of them clean regularly, but not all purify their drinking water.
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Solution
To manage these problems, approaches must be focused on changing the negative practices of the community, mobilize the people, and utilize available resources to improve the situation of the water sources.
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Sustainability
Community involvement is the best way to ascertain sustainability of the programs that will be implemented. All throughout the process, from the identification of the problem up to the evaluation of results, the people must be actively involved to instill the sense of ownership and cooperation in them. The local leaders must also be empowered so that they will be motivated to guide the people effectively and provide independent decisions in managing the projects.
swm update
SEPTEMBER 2022 IMPLEMENTATION
The fourth (4th) and last monitoring and evaluation survey were made and data revealed that out of 328 households surveyed, households that practice segregation increased to 100% from 97% during the third (3rd) round evaluation. Biodegradable waste disposal through backyard composting had a massive increase to 93% from the initial survey and the remaining 6 (2%) of households bury their biodegradable waste. For the residual waste, all household surveyed has been utilizing the MRF. An increase in the number of households that practice recycling was again noted, with now more than 50% of the households compared to the previous survey which was at 30%. However, 17 (5%) households still practiced burning of biodegradable waste. As there were a growing number of mosquitoes in the locality, residents verbalized that they burn biodegradable wastes as a technique to repel mosquitoes, particularly during the rainy seasons. Lastly, households that practice open dumping were maintained at zero while burying and burning residuals and recyclables are now non-existing based on survey.
The Barangay Council has mandated every household to have two (2) separate pits for biodegradable wastes and non-biodegradable wastes. The pits are a temporary storage area per household to store waste materials until such time the scheduled collection to the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) warrants disposal. However, due to negligence and lack of maintenance of those pits, they collapsed preventing households from practicing proper segregation. Over the month of July and August 2022, an increasing trend of improper waste segregation was noted, since a Municipal Ordinance was reiterated to the community, this had dropped to zero at the end of the evaluation. Furthermore, residents with a damaged pit that allows non-segregation of waste materials that warrants open dumping were fined which also contributed to the outcome.
Harmful waste disposal practices like burning, open dumping and burying decreased steadily until disengagement as depicted in the table above. Burning of waste had a decrease from 77 (23.48%) households to the current 9 (2.74%), while open dumping decreased from 22 (7%) to zero, and burying decreased from 113 (34.45%) to 6 (1.83%). Beneficial practices like composting and recycling have increased from 132 (40%) to 304 (93%) and from 43 (13%) to 173 (53%) households, respectively.
Despite the entire households surveyed having solid waste receptacles not all have covers that influence breeding of insects like flies and mosquitoes. However, an increasing trend of households whose waste receptacles have covers are noted.
Various strategies and activities were implemented to promote awareness and practice of proper Solid Waste Management in the community. Amidst quarantine restrictions due to COVID-19 Pandemic, challenges and obstacles were overcome, and program implementation pushed through until such time an empowered community was attained. Instilled with passion and dedication to help solve the health problems of the community through people-empowerment and capacity building, that from January 2019 to September 2022, 77% of households in Barangay Maras, Municipality of Sindangan, Zamboanga del Norte practiced proper Solid Waste Management. The interventions presented to the people led to a successful health program implementation. Furthermore, the sustenance of the Brigada Kontra Basura Program shall now be vested upon the community.