MEF’s Solid Waste Trainings Go Sectoral

Mother Earth Foundation has recently partnered with the Pinatubo Hazard Urgent Mitigation Project (PHUMP) under the Department of Public Works and Highways for the purpose of conducting Community-Based Solid Waste Management Support for Selected PHUMP III Barangays.   Fifteen barangays from the City of San Fernando (San Jose, San Felipe, Sta. Lucia and Del Pilar) and the Municipalities of Sto. Tomas (San Matias and Sto. Rosario Pau), Guagua (San Juan Nepomuceno, Bancal, San Agustin and San Rafael), Lubao (San Nicolas 1st and San Jose Gumi), Mexico (San Jose Matulid) and Sasmuan (Sta. Lucia and Sta. Monica) have been selected for this project. 

Solid waste was identified as one of the concerns that need to be addressed to ease the flooding hazard perennially experienced by the project sites due to the devastating effects of the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991. If communities along the water bodies will stop dumping wastes in rivers and creeks, the integrity of PHUMP III civil works (i.e. infrastructure, dredging and excavation) will be protected. It is in this context that MEF was tapped to implement the soft component (solid waste management) of the project to complement its hard component (civil works) during the third phase of the project implementation.

After conducting the Green Audit or Profiling, followed by the Waste Assessment & Characterization Survey (WACS) and ESWM trainings for all selected barangays,  MEF is now expanding the project reach through the conduct of a series of province-wide sectoral trainings on ESWM.

Starting with the Sectoral Training for Schools held last 25 January 2012 in partnership with the Schools Division of Pampanga and the Schools Division of the City of San Fernando, this was followed by a Sectoral Training for Businesses held last 12 April 2012 in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry-Pampanga (DTI-Pampanga), the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce (PamCham) and the Pampanga Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (Pampanga PENRO).

The last in the series of sectoral trainings is for the Church Sector and this will be held in May 2012.

Meanwhile, the Search for Model Barangays is still ongoing and the winners will be awarded before the project ends in June 2012.