This is the success story of Los Baños, which has been able to transform its "smokey mountain" at the foot of legendary, tree-covered Mt. Makiling into a model of waste management.
In years past, this internationally known university town at times won "clean and green" awards from ecological/environment bodies.
And observant residents used to tell previous town officials in jest that the judges in the environment tilts must be either blind or did not visit Los Baños at all during the selection of the model towns.
Fact is, Los Baños could not hide the big columns of smoke coming from burning heaps of garbage dumped just along the road leading to the Boy Scouts of the Philippines/Jamboree site of Mt. Makiling.
One time, too, a scientist of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) told this writer that children is adjacent areas which the toxic smoke could reach had been suffering from respiratory diseases.
This problem that stuck like a leech to this town proclaimed as "Science and Nature City" through a Presidential executive order has been solved.
The credit goes to the local government officials led by Mayor Caesar Perez, the cooperative citizenry, and the Los Baños Science Community (LBSC), an association of 22 international, regional and national research and academic institutions and agencies based in Los Baños.
Until last year, about 35 tons of assorted garbage collected from the whole town were heaped on the open dump every day.
Tackling the problem by the proverbial horn, Mayor Perez and the LBSC Foundation, Inc. (LBSCFI) headed by Executive Director Patricio S. Faylon of the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (DOST-PCARRD) initiated the Los Baños Solid Waste Management (SWM) program.
The various sectors of the science community were also harnessed to participate in the program, particularly the segregation of their biodegradable and nonbiodegradable garbage before these were collected by the garbage personnel.
A series of consultants; massive information, education, and communication (IEC) campaigns; and waste segregation demonstrations were held.
The SWM program, Perez stressed, aimed to change the Los Baños residents’ age-old habit of depending solely on the government in the solution of their garbage disposal problem.
The mayor, as reported by EWPC operations manager Lito Avelino, also required the town’s barangays to visit the center.
Several groups have likewise been formed to help in the SWM program. These were the SWM board, Task Force Kalinisan, LBSCFI Technical Working Group, Los Baños Solid Waste Management Organization, and Deputized Volunteer Enforcers.
Today, the one-hectare Los Baños Ecological Waste Processing Center receives not only segregated biodegradable and nonbiodegradable wastes but also visitors who wanted to witness how an average of 75 tons a month of recyclable waste are sorted, shredded, composted and harvested.
The composts produced out of the processed garbage are distributed for free to Los Baños folk, particularly farmers and schools with gardens, Avelino said.
He reported that the center has been visited by members of the Cabinet, senators, members of the House of Representatives, scientists/researchers, mayors, students and excursionists.
Perez has also been invited by various groups to share with them the success story of Los Baños in the solution of its garbage problem. These included the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP), LMP-Laguna; PCARRD governing council; environment groups in Cavite, Batangas, and Cebu; and a concerned committee of the House of Representatives.