One of the most famous informal settlement sites in the Philippines was known as Smokey Mountain. It got its name from the smoke and fumes that billowed from the massive waste collection site in Manila. For years, it was home to around 300,000 squatters, many of whom also made their living from picking through the garbage and selling their findings, including anything from recyclable plastics and paper products to volatile “e-waste” from discarded electronics and devices.
After the Philippines started getting negative publicity from Smokey Mountain’s reputation, the government shut the landfill down in 1995, cleared out the informal settlements, and began to construct low-cost public housing on the site. However, the funding ran out partway through, leaving some of the housing un-built. Though it was an effort at solving the problem, it still ended in displacement and loss of livelihood for those who relied on sorting through the waste for their living. Another landfill also sprung up adjacent to the former Smokey Mountain site where informal settlements have once again sprung up, and the informal economic activity that used to occur on Smokey Mountain now occurs on this new site.
There is, however, a similar case that took a very different approach to informal settlers and
“rag pickers” making a hazardous living off of a landfill. Payatas, a landfill in Quezon City, has changed management — and the new managers have decided to recognize, incorporate, and capitalize upon this existing economic activity.
This actually began with a disaster. In 2000, there was a massive landslide that killed hundreds of settlers and left many more missing. This terrible tragedy led the government to try to close the landfill — but this was impossible, because there was no place else for the city’s domestic waste to go. As a result, a private operator took over. The existing landfills were grassed over, and they started to harvest bio-gas from the mounds to generate electricity. Now, the active landfill sites are staffed by 3,000 former scavengers. There are regulations against child labor, and revenue is distributed equally. This allows the workers to use their expertise in the formal sector with better remuneration and safeguards than informal scavenging can provide.
While privatization may not always be the best way to get resources to poor residents, as it may price them out of basic necessities and services such as water/electricity/waste processing, there are cases where the private economic enterprises can have a fruitful, reciprocal relationship with people surviving in the informal sector. By recognizing the value that their work provides, both the company and the individual stand to benefit.
Sources/further reading:
Gaurdian Weekly: “Manila’s waste scavengers are integrated into the recycling chain”. Gilles van Kote.
An interesting firsthand perspective from a Jesuit priest in Tokyo, Hiroshi Katayanagi: “The Forgotten Slums: The Smoky Mountain”.
About the new Payatas facility: “In Payatas, turning trash into clean energy windfall”. Karl Malakunas, Agence France-Presse.
Lefthand image: Ted Aljibe via http://www.rappler.com
[In]formal $ettlements 