Lenny recalled freezing when he saw the first heap of garbage collapse underneath the feet of his fellow scavengers on the afternoon of Feb. 20, at a landfill in the town of Rodriguez, in the Philippines’ Rizal province. Moments later, a larger perimeter caved. In an instant, a crater of trash had swallowed up hundreds of people.
Scavengers aren’t technically employed by the landfill and are charged 50 pesos (about US$1) as a weekly entrance fee. Armed with nothing more than T-shirts wrapped around their faces, they sift through the trash collected from nearby Metro Manila, looking for plastic and metal items they can sell to local junk shops by the kilo for recycling.
According to Lenny (who asked not to use his real name for fear of reprisal) and other eyewitnesses, after the collapse, the landfill management ordered the dumping of more garbage and the bulldozing the surrounding debris to create a path downward. That ended up trapping dozens of scavengers under the trash.
Mark Delos Reyes, spokesman for International Solid Waste Integrated Management Specialist (ISWIMS), the private company operating the landfill, denied that additional waste was dumped immediately after the trash slide. “All dumping was immediately halted. Any truck or equipment movement they saw in the area was strictly for our emergency search and retrieval operations, not waste disposal.”
When Lenny spoke to Mongabay, more than 48 hours after the incident, his cousin was still missing. He said he was unaware there was any search being carried out.
“I kept looking for my cousin,” Lenny, 27, a scavenger for eight years, told Mongabay. “But they asked us to step aside. We already live off the garbage and they treat us like our lives don’t matter.”
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The work of scavengers is inherently precarious. They earn very little and must put their bodies through the country’s waste with virtually no protection. Unfortunately, it’s unsurprising that something like this would happen.
Mimi Doringo, campaigner, Kadamay
Eyewitnesses estimate that more than 50 people were trapped under the trash slide. By contrast, officials said on Feb. 22 that one person had died and two remained missing.
On Feb. 24, the government issued a cease and desist order covering 6 hectares (15 acres) of the 50-hectare (124-acre) Rizal Provincial Sanitary Landfill (formally Green Leap Solid Waste Management, Inc.) pending further investigation. Initial reports state that around 420,000 cubic meters (14.8 million cubic feet) of solid waste eroded from an area where waste was being dumped.
Nilo Tamoria, regional director for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, told media that the government “will not tolerate negligence that puts the environment and public safety at risk.”
The department’s Feb. 23 investigation revealed “operational lapses,” including foul odour from exposed waste and a visible crack in the landfill’s slopes that threatened further collapse.
Delos Reyes told Mongabay the company respects and will comply with government orders. “We are already in strict compliance with this directive, and the area remains completely cordoned off. Our 24/7 Search and Retrieval operations in the affected site will continue unhindered in coordination with the authorities.”
Urban poor and environmental groups are demanding accountability as no formal rescue operations were conducted in the immediate hours and days following the incident. They urged stricter public health and safety enforcement for the 3,000 scavengers who work on the landfill and live in the nearby slum communities.
Mimi Doringo of Kadamay, the national urban poor alliance, criticised both the landfill management and the municipal government of Rizal. “Even if it was just one person trapped underneath, the authorities should not bury the truth alongside them.”
Scavengers work in three shifts every day at the landfill, which receives more than 3,000 metric tons of trash from Metro Manila and several other cities every day. For a day’s work, they can take home between 400 and 500 pesos (about US$7-US$10).
“The work of scavengers is inherently precarious. They earn very little and must put their bodies through the country’s waste with virtually no protection,” Doringo said. “Unfortunately, it’s unsurprising that something like this would happen.”
Congresswoman Sarah Elago of the Gabriela Women’s Party, a left-wing opposition party, filed a resolution on Feb. 24 to investigate possible violations in occupational safety and waste management.
Elago called on local authorities to “conduct swift rescue operations and provide aid to the victim’s families.”
A history of disasters
The incident parallels a trash slide in Cebu City this January that killed 36 people. It also harkens back to a major disaster in 2000, when more than 200 slum residents were killed in a garbage collapse in Metro Manila, an incident known as the Payatas tragedy.
Since 2002, the Philippines has adopted the use of sanitary landfills, requiring waste covers, treatment systems, gas control and other methods to contain toxicity. This replaces the old and riskier open dumpsites, where waste was dumped directly on the ground practically unabated — a practice prohibited after the Payatas tragedy.
However, Dr. Julie Caguiat, a physician from the Institute of Occupational Health and Safety Development, a Philippine NGO, questioned whether landfill sanitation has met proper standards.
“Sanitary landfills should be more regulated. But clearly, there are some big gaps in implementation. For example, the scavengers should be equipped with protective gear by the management,” Caguiat told Mongabay.
Several hundred slum residents live just outside the Rizal provincial landfill’s gates. Every day, thousands of tons of unsorted waste are left out in the open. The Ecological Solid Waste Management Law requires landfills to be sited away from residential areas. It also requires managers to provide protections for the local population, such as a “cover consisting of soil and geosynthetic materials to protect the waste from long-term contact with the environment.”
Much of the town of Rodriguez is coated with a sticky and lingering odour that locals have learned to endure. A study of Philippine dumpsites and landfills found airborne toxic chemicals such as lead and cadmium present.
Caguiat said this is also likely the case for Rodriguez.
“The main risk to nearby communities is respiratory. It’s surely unsanitary,” she said.
Water percolating through the dumpsite can carry contaminants into the surrounding environment, Caguiat said. “Garbage set on slopes like that leads to unhealthy levels of leachate.”
Marian Ledesma of Greenpeace Philippines said the recent trash slide incidents are indications the country is “failing to uphold the intent of our own laws. The Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 was designed around waste prevention, yet government action has largely focused on managing waste only after it is already generated.”
Jeff, another survivor of the recent incident, said he clawed through the chemically treated scorching waste to dig out his son, who had been left neck-deep for an hour in the trash slide. He said his son has since been resting at home; the family can’t afford to take him to hospital, despite the severe burns on his back and legs.
After 14 years of scraping through the landfill, Jeff said he’s seen this happen six times, with the latest incident being the worst. Each time, he said, the site managers have told them to keep silent or risk being banned from the facility.
“We need to speak out now, for the truth to come out,” he told Mongabay.
This story was published with permission from Mongabay.com.
