From ‘bote, garapa’ to circular economy

I was having a “Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker” moment over the weekend as the Marcoses structured over the commemoration of the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution that forced them into exile in Hawaii. So, as a matter of personal therapy, I thought I’d do some tangible janitorial work and write about something that is, so far, uncontroversial.

A circular economy is essentially a network of human relationships designed to produce more inclusive and sustainable collective well-being, achieved through renewable resources and with the least use of finite resources.

In the stylized technical cycle, the user collects, shares, maintains/prolongs the use of an item, then reuses/redistributes, refurbishes/remanufactures, and recycles it, then sends it to a parts manufacturer, who then sends it to a product manufacturer, who then sends it to a service provider, who then sends back in some way to the user-collector.

In the stylized biological cycle, the consumer collects items, extracts biochemical feedstock for anaerobic digestion for biogas production, enabling the biosphere regeneration and renewables flow management to the parts manufacturer, then product manufacturer, then service provider, then to the consumer collector. All this aims to minimize systematic leakage and negative externalities.

The first thought I had was, circular economy was already being practiced by Filipinos since the last world war 70 years ago. There is nothing like a world war to generate so much recyclable waste and reusables, like jeeps and airstrip steel matting that we still find in use today.

Before its 3R version of reduce, reuse, recycle that has metamorphosed into 4Rs, adding either replace, recover, or repair into the mix, Filipinos knew it as “bote, garapa.” Usually, young kids and old people would go around the neighborhood buying bottles, scrap metal, paper, and other recyclables from households and sell them to junkshops. Junkshops would then sell these to enterprises that would reuse or recycle them.

Overall, our cities’ solid waste management systems work because there is so much poverty, even the poor have to develop efficient “systems.” I marvel how, as the Antipolo garbage truck passes my street, two senior members of the crew already spot the more valuable items (strollers, microwave ovens, TV sets, typewriters) and put them in their huge personal bags attached to the side of the truck. Everything else is thrown up to the truck, where two or three guys use their kalahig (clawing tool) to open each garbage bag and deftly separate the cardboard, paper, bottles, cans, etc., into containers on the side of the truck.

Note that these initial two passes precede the further screening at the faraway landfill. Each pass filters the garbage for reusables and recyclables, an unforgivingly efficient process.

So, what’s the problem? The “magbobote” (the bottle and knickknack collectors) and now the “mangangalahig” (those who pick through the garbage dumpsites) were doing it for just themselves. From the start up to the present, there has been no real consciousness at all that this recovery process was socially beneficial.

Let me illustrate. On a visit to Smokey Mountain, I observed two recovery processes. In one, a young man was burning a bed mattress, which created thick black smoke and an overpowering acrid smell. Before long, I saw what he was after—the metal springs that provided support for the mattress. He generated so much pollution just to get such slim pickings, but he was genuinely unaware of the damage he caused.

Then I saw a young girl with a big vat half full of white-colored gel. She had collected a huge stash of empty tubes of toothpaste, and she was squeezing the residual into the vat. I still wonder where that residual toothpaste ended up in. Recently, in the Payatas dump site, I saw boys collecting slightly soiled diapers. They said these would fill up throw pillows.

This level of hunger for recyclables indicated to me that for as long as there are urban poor, some circular economy would be operating. The powerful motivators are not about climate change, but about poverty, vulnerability, marginalization, and voicelessness.

But it is not a real circular economy if there are leakages and negative externalities. To get real dividends, we need to imbue the process with sufficient systems for safeguarding health, safety, and the environment. How to make this happen is the innovative process required of government, the private sector, and local communities to make circular economies a reality.

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