Valde, R.K.

(2019)

BAYAWAN CITY WASTE MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY CENTER (BCWMEC)

Robert Kir T. Valde

University of the Philippines – Visayas BS. Chemical Engineering Student, BCWMEC Intern

The Bayawan City Tourism Mission and Vision:

Mission: “We commit to improve the quality of the life of BAYAWANONS through Agri
– entrepreneurship, tourism, and environmental sustainability.”

Vision: “Bayawan City is the Top Farm Tourism City in the Philippines by 2020”

I. INTRODUCTION
Bayawan City is a medium sized City with a population of 117,900 and is located at
Region VII at the Southern part of Negros Oriental between the municipalities of Basay and
Sta. Catalina (PhilAtlas, 2016). The City of Bayawan is a place where you meet hospitable,
cheerful and happy people. Of course, it wouldn’t be named as The City of Character without
a reason. It is widely known for its massive agricultural lands, beautiful tourist spots and waste
management discipline.
This City of Bayawan is very well known for its sanitary landfill where there are about
400 guests every month from different parts of the country and even from abroad who travelled
hundreds of kilometers just to visit Bayawan City Waste Management and Ecology Center
(BCWMEC). Because of this, BCWMEC is one of the biggest assets of the Tourism of
Bayawan City. BCWMEC also garnered huge awards for its compliance in terms of the effect
to the community and to environment. It also received big recognitions because of the well
managed and well-maintained facility. These awards and recognitions are as follows:
 Plaque of Recognition for its significant contribution in the implementation of
the solid waste management; received on June 13, 2011; conferred by the office
of the Regional Director, Department of Environment and Natural Resources;
Region 7
 Presidential Lingkod Bayan Award Semi – Finalist (Bayawan Integrated Waste
Management Team) during the 2013 Search for Outstanding Officials and
Employees; received on June 20, 2013; conferred by the Civil Service
Commission
 Certificate of Recognition for establishing and maintaining its Bayawan Waste
Management and Ecology Center in accordance with R.A. 9003; received on
October 10, 2013; Conferred by the Environment Management Bureau,
Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Region 7
 Presidential Lingkod Bayan National Award (Bayawan Integrated Waste
Management Team) during the 2013 Search for Outstanding Officials and
Employees; received on November 23, 2013; conferred by the Civil Service
Commission

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 EMB Terra Prize 2016 for integrated Wastes Management conferred by the
Environmental Management Bureau, DENR 7
 Gawad Tugas Award 2018 – in recognition of having displayed and
demonstrated innovation, ingenuity and investment in the environmental
protection, conservation and management; conferred by EMB – DENR 7

The Bayawan City Waste Management and Ecology Center is one of the best to comply
the principle behind Republic Act No. 9003 or also known as the Ecological Solid Waste
Management Act of 2000. This law is about reducing, reusing, and recycling of wastes. In
Bayawan City, every household is discipled by an order of local ordinance to strictly segregate
their wastes before the collection by the garbage trucks. This order is also known as segregation
at source. By this, an act of reduction of wastes is practiced since some of the biodegradable
wastes that are segregated can be used for backyard composting or in gardening. The trash
collected by the garbage trucks are dumped directly in the Material Recovery Facility where
more segregation is done, meaning some materials can still be recycled (cans, plastic bottles,
rubber tires, etc). The biodegradable wastes collected can be reused as food for the worms or
vermicasting.
 Segregation at source (Reduce)
 Vermi – composting (Reuse)
 Material Recovery Facility (Recycle)

The Bayawan City Waste Management and Ecology Center (BCWMEC) is located at
Sitio Omod, Brgy. Maninihon, Bayawan City about 12 kilometers from the city proper. Its land
area is a massive 27.4 hectares including one hectare allotted for the residual waste cell. The
cell’s operating period is about 25 – 30 years depending on the waste collected daily. This
facility is built with the idea and guidance of the German Development Services lead Mr. Jouke
Boorsma and Mr. Johannes G. Paul and also with the efforts of the former Mayor German P.
Saraña Jr. and the BCWMEC manager Engr. Antonio Aguilar. The main purpose of this facility
is to properly segregate all kinds of waste, to recycle water from residual waste and human
feces, and to maintain well-managed and odorless waste management facility.
In April 2010, Bayawan City inaugurated the Bayawan City Waste Management and
Ecology Centre. With this, approximately 35 percent of the population are provided with SWM
services. For this part of the community, the “Pay-As-You-Throw” (PAYT) principle was
proposed and validated within a new local ordinance. With the new PAYT mechanism, waste
diversion for various types of waste is encouraged likewise. The largest waste diversion can be
realized by reducing the amount of bio-waste collected since such waste components were
dominating prior to introduction of PAYT. By reducing the amounts of bio-waste, considerable
cost savings result for both collection and disposal. Furthermore, amounts of leachate and gas
produced in the landfill can be reduced. Hence, the LGU constructed a new landfill to provide
the needed barriers and protection measures in order to prevent environmental impacts. To
safeguard sustainable operation of the landfill and municipal SWM services, the LGU proposed
a new policy which integrates mechanisms to enhance waste segregation and to increase
material recovery. Full Cost Accounting (FCA) was used as a tool to identify the actual cost
incurred for SWM. FCA together with the revenues generated by the PAYT scheme enables
the LGU to review the actual cost scenario. Based on the experiences made with PAYT,
enhancement measures are proposed to further increase waste diversion effects and system

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profitability (Boorsma, 2011). They PAYT principle is made possible by the local Ordinance
by the use of sticker system. When disposing wastes, a sticker must be attached to every sack
of trash. If the collector does not recognize any sticker from the bag, then it will not be placed
in the garbage truck. The stickers are available at the city secretary’s office or at every barangay
hall in Bayawan City.

II. FACILITIES AND TECHNICAL DETAILS ABOUT BCWMEC

1. Guardhouse / Entrance Guarding Facility

Figure 1. BCWMEC Guardhouse or Entrance Guarding Facility

The guardhouse takes care of the attendance of the workers when timing in, at 8
o’clock in the morning, until timing out, at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, of duty. The
guardhouse is also responsible of checking the permits and transaction of the visitors
and customers when entering the BCWMEC, and it is also responsible for letting the
manager and/or the supervisor know if visitors have arrived. The guardhouse, of course,
is also responsible for the security of the facility.
2. Admin Building

Figure 2. BCWMEC Administration Building

The admin building is the only building in the site where the office of the
BCWMEC manager and supervisor is located. In this building, all the paper works
are assessed by the secretary. The secretary is also responsible in recording the tasks

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to be done and the task completed. The secretary is also in-charge of accounting the
salaries of the workers based on their attendance. The admin building offers
orientation for the guests, lead by the managing staffs of BCWMEC, to familiarize
the facility before the tour.
3. Truck Scale/ Scale Bridge

Figure 3. The Garbage Truck Weighing Scale or Scale Bridge

The BCWMEC scale bridge is a large digital modern electronic weighing scale
with a capacity of 30 metric tons of weight. After the garbage truck collected the trash
from the community, it will return to BCWMEC. Before it disposes the wastes, it will
be weighed first. After it disposed the wastes, it will be weighed again to determine
the net weight of the trash collected. Net weight = Gross(truck with trash) –
Tare(truck without trash)

4. Central Material Recovery Facility (CMRF)

(a)

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(b)
Figure 4. Non-biodegradable CMRF. (a) Front View and (b) Back View

(a)

(b)
Figure 5. Biodegradable CMRF. (a) Front View and (b) Back View

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The CMRF is developed in order to separate the organic wastes, residual wastes
and recyclable wastes. This facility only uses slides and hence, gravity. The slides are
guiding the waste down into separate boxes for each type of waste. The use of a
gravity-based system results in a more efficient operation and reduced maintenance
(Boorsma, 2009).
Biodegradable wastes are wastes that can be decomposed or broken down naturally
by the action of bacteria while non – biodegradable wastes are wastes that cannot be
decomposed or broken down by just bacteria alone. The biodegradable and non –
biodegradable wastes are dumped separately in the two different sections of the
Material Recovery Facility (MRF). The non - biodegradable wastes are collected from
the community during every Tuesday and Saturday and these wastes are dumped in
the non - biodegradable MRF shown in Figure 4. In this area, the residual wastes, like
plastic bags, diapers, etc., are separated from the wastes that can be recovered or
recycled, like cans, plastic bottles, cans, glass bottles, etc. The residual wastes are then
forwarded to the sanitary landfill while the recovered wastes are kept to different
sectors.
5. Biodegradable Waste Dumping Site

Figure 6. Biodegradable Waste Dumping Site

Biodegradable wastes are collected every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. These
kinds of wastes are dumped first in the biodegradable – MRF for waste screening and
material recovery. The screened wastes or residual wastes, which consists of plastics,
and other inorganic wastes, are collected and forwarded to the sanitary landfill.
However, the rest of the wastes are forwarded to the Vermi – Composting Facility.
The biodegradable dumping site is the most isolated among the dumping sites since it
produces unpleasant odor.

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6. Vermi – Composting Facility

Figure 7. Vermi- Composting Facility

Presently, collected biodegradables are transported to the MRF where the City’s
Environmental and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) applied different types of
composting. The first technology applied was drum composting. Using mechanized
drum composter one can reduce the processing time but faces increased costs due to
additional investments for mechanized equipment, electricity consumptions,
maintenance of the drums and acquisition of process enhancer which needs to be
added. The final product from the drum composter does not provide a significant
advantage in terms of quality and marketability (Paul, 2003). Due to difficulties with
the drum composters, it was decided to shift to windrow composting. This static
technology provides a less costly way to process biodegradable waste.
The Vermi composting facility makes use of biodegradable wastes as primary food
for worms to create organic fertilizers. In BCWMEC, the worms used was African
night crawlers (Eudrilus Eugeniae). African Night Crawlers are a distinctive mix of a
grey and purple color and grow to over twice the size of red worms, often reaching
over 8 inches. If you are familiar with red worms one of the things you will
immediately notice about the ANC is how large and muscular it is compared to the
redworm. The large size of their castings is also surprising (Worm Farm Facts, 2012).
There are also cells (420cm x 275cm x 50cm) on feeding these worms. These worms
are placed at the bottom of the pit, then they were covered by the screened
biodegradable wastes that serves as their food. The worms stayed there for about 40 –
45 days depending on how fast they feed on the soil. After about 45 days, the workers
separate the worms from the soil then they collect the feces of the worms (organic
fertilizers) and they packed it 50 kg per bag. A local ordinance is implemented to sell
these vemicast at a price of 185 Php per bag.

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7. Hazardous and Toxic Facility

Figure 8. Hazardous and Toxic Waste Area

The toxic and hazardous wastes are placed in the toxic and hazard facility where
there is a tank built for this kind of wastes. These wastes are compressed in this tank
and when it is full, it is sealed so that there is no leakage of any dangerous matter
which these wastes may produce. The collection of this type of waste is during every
Thursday of the month.
The dangerous wastes are kept here. Hazardous, or toxic, waste is the potentially
dangerous byproduct of a wide range of activities, including manufacturing, farming,
water treatment systems, construction, automotive garages, laboratories, hospitals, and
other industries. The waste may be liquid, solid, or sludge and contain chemicals,
heavy metals, radiation, pathogens, or other materials. Even households generate
hazardous waste, from items such as batteries, used computer equipment, and leftover
paints or pesticides (Wolters, 2019).
Toxic waste can harm people, animals, and plants, whether it ends up in the ground,
in streams, or even in the air. Some toxins, such as mercury and lead, persist in the
environment for many years and accumulate over time. Humans or wildlife often
absorb these toxic substances when they eat fish or other prey (Wolters, 2019).

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8. BCWMEC Sanitary Landfill and Cell Structure

Figure 9. The BCWMEC Sanitary Landfill First Cell

The BCWMEC Landfill is a carefully designed structure built into the ground in
which trash is isolated from the surrounding environment (groundwater, air, rain). The
purpose of a landfill is to bury the residual wates in such a way that it will be isolated
from groundwater, will be kept dry and will not be in contact with air. Under these
conditions, trash will not decompose much. A landfill is not like a compost pile, where
the purpose is to bury trash in such a way that it will decompose quickly
(Freundenrich, 2000).
At the Bayawan City landfill, an engineered base liner was installed in order to
collect the leachate and to avoid the pollution of groundwater and surrounding surface
waters. Furthermore, it cannot be assumed that a given natural site provides an equal
distribution in terms of permeability for the site as a whole due to geological
considerations. Soil was used as bottom liner instead of an expensive synthetic liner.
The material chosen for the liner was bentonite as a clay additive instead. Bentonite
was chosen due to its known swelling capacity and hereby closing any voids within
the three layered, 25 cm in thickness of each layer, base soil liner, illustrated in figure
10 (Paul, 2003). Based on the experiment conducted by DOST where they tested the
effectiveness of mixing bentonite clay with the local clay, they came up with a
conclusion of an efficient and effective performance of even just 10% of bentonite clay
used, instead of 20% based on the suggested mixture of RA 9003, as the base liner of
the sanitary landfill. It is because the local clay is already good enough to absorb
leachate and it also has a capability to swell just like bentonite clay.

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Figure 10. Cross – section of Bayan Sanitary Landfill

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282971511_ESTABLISHMENT_OF_A_WAS
TE_MANAGEMENT_AND_ECOLOGY_CENTER_IN_BAYAWAN_CITY_NEGROS
_ORIENTAL_PHILIPPINES]
In order to ensure stability of the cell, a side slope of 1:3 was chosen (vertical to
horizontal). The produced leachate is guided towards the buffer lagoon by the sloping
bottom liner. The transverse slope of the cell is defined at 4 percent and the
longitudinal slope is defined at 2 percent for the leachate piping. The illustration of
these modifications is showed in figure 11. After the lagoon, the leachate will be
treated by the wastewater treatment system. Besides proper collection and treatment
of leachate, an important aspect of the landfill operation is the monitoring of
groundwater and surrounding bodies of surface waters in order to safeguard the proper
functioning of the installed liner system. For groundwater monitoring, several wells
were strategically placed surrounding the cell (Boorsma, 2009).

FIGURE 11: Landfill Structure of BCWMEC

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282971511_ESTABLISHMENT_OF_A_WAS
TE_MANAGEMENT_AND_ECOLOGY_CENTER_IN_BAYAWAN_CITY_NEGROS
_ORIENTAL_PHILIPPINES]

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The setup of the BCWMEC aimed to avoid gas production and accumulation
within the landfill site. To avoid accumulation of gas within the cell, an additional gas
venting system will be installed. The system will consist of bottomless oil drums which
are placed in the cell and filled with boulders. When the waste reaches the top of the
drum, the drum will be pulled up and filled again with boulders until the waste reaches
the maximum allowable level. To avoid unnecessary waste disposal and to avoid
landfill gas production, the municipality applies two strategies namely: waste
segregation at source and at the “end of the pipe” segregation of biodegradable and
non-biodegradable materials (Boorsma, 2009)

9. Septage Treatment and Digester

The digester tank is responsible for the anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion
is a chemical process in which organic matter is broken down by microorganisms in
the absence of oxygen, which results in the generation of carbon dioxide (CO2) and
methane (CH4) (Jarvie, 2011).

Figure 12. Digester Tank

Bayawan City has a scheduled de-clogging operation every four years to empty
the septic tanks of every household and establishments to prevent leakage into the
groundwater aquifer and to minimize the incidence of waterborne diseases. The city
has acquired three vacuum de-clogger trucks, which are used to collect septage from
septic tanks in the city. The main purpose of this project is to reduce pollution load of
the domestic sector (Boorsma, 2009). The applied technology consists of two storage
tanks connected to drying beds. Collected septage will be stored for approximately 30
days in the storage tanks of the digester and subsequently emptied into the drying beds.
A wastewater treatment facility is connected to the system. The multi-tiered project is
another pioneering effort of Bayawan City to show the way in implementing
environmental laws, by providing the needed infrastructure to perform its
environmental duties, to attain the goal of sustainable local development. The
treatment system was operational on August 2009 and is a step further for Bayawan
City to make life better for everyone without sacrificing the environment (Boorsma,
2009).

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The City of Bayawan implemented a project in cooperation with the Bayawan

City Water District (BAWAD) where there is an additional charge of 2 PhP per cubic
meter of water consumed per household as a septage fee, in return of a free septic tank
suction. This project is supported by the Bayawan City local ordinance.

10. Wastewater Treatment Facility

The Bayawan sanitary landfill is not just a place serving as a trash dump site in the
city, but it is a place where wastes are also being recycled and reused. One process of
that is by treating leachates from septage water from human feces collected from
homes and landfill moistures and precipitation. The leachate from landfill flows
through the piping system of landfill, shown in figure 11, going to the lagoon while
septage water flows directly to anaerobic water treatment facility. The quality of
leachate is highly dependent upon the waste composition, stage of fermentation in the
landfill, procedures and operation. Many chemicals (e.g. metals, aliphatics, acyclics,
terpenes, and aromatics) have been detected in landfill leachate from domestic,
commercial, industrial, and co-disposal sites (El-Fadel et al., 1995). Unlike the
leachate, the supernatant has a constant composition and its quantity can be controlled.
The quantity depends on the collection rate of septage, this in contrary to the landfill
leachate which depends on the precipitation, moisture content of the waste and
operation practices.
The designed system consists of 4 different
components without moving parts in order to
avoid additional costs for electricity and
maintenance. The leachate treatment uses a
lagoon, aerobic ponds and a wetland. The
septage treatment uses an anaerobic baffled
reactor (ABR), aerobic ponds and a wetland.
The lagoon was designed in order to catch large
amounts of leachate during rainy days. It should
be able to buffer at least a heavy rain event
which is assumed to be 150 mm in 3 or 4 days.
During normal operation, the lagoon will have
a depth of not more than 1.0 meter. With this
depth, the lagoon will, beside its role as buffer,
serve as an aerobic treatment. The total volume
of the system compromises 1,500 m3. The
lagoon is protected by a HDPE liner since
concrete basins are subjected to cracks. To
assure the quality of the liner, the city has
chosen for a supplier which follows ASTM
standards in their production and liner
Figure 13. Anaerobic Water Treatment installation process (Boorsma, 2009).
Facility

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Figure 15. Aerobic Water Treatment Facility

Figure 14. The BCWMEC Lagoon

The ABR is solely used for the septage treatment. The reactors main purpose is to
reduce the waste load of the supernatant originating from the drying beds and the
storage tanks. The ABR reaches high treatment rates due to its high solids retention
time. According to a study performed by Foxon et al. the ABR reaches a 1 log
reduction in pathogen indicator organisms (e-coli and total Coliforms) and a Chemical
Oxygen Demand (COD) removal between 58 and 72 percent. After the ABR, the
wastewater flows to the aerobic pond. The aerobic pond consists of 4 chambers in
which filter materials can be placed if needed. The final treatment for both types of
wastewater is the wetland (Boorsma, 2009).

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III. CONCLUSION
The Solid Waste Management (SWM) program in Bayawan City had become one
of the best practices in the country in terms of compliance of RA 9003 other wise
known as Solid Waste Management Act of 2003. The movement of reducing, reusing,
and recycling is widely practiced within the city.
The BCWMEC is equipped with well-functioning and cooperative facilities from
the guardhouse to the water treatment facility. By practicing the reduce, reuse, and
recycle, the BCWMEC came up with an IGP in selling the vermicast of 185 PhP per
50-kilogram bag by reusing the screened biodegradable wastes as food for the African
nightcrawler worms (ANC).
The sanitary landfill is equipped with a liner composing of sand, gravel, soil, and
clay. The application of a Bentonite enhanced clay liner was chosen to utilize locally
available materials and to lessen cost for material import. Because of its swelling
capacity, bentonite clay was chosen as additive to construct the liner. Based on the
study conducted by the DOST, by reducing the amount of bentonite to 10 percent
instead of 20 percent, a significant reduction in construction cost could be reached
since the local clay or the host clay is already susceptible for absorption and swelling
just like the bentonite clay.
In the drainage system of the landfill, a drainage layer and piping system was
installed. The purpose of this installment is to give proper protection and drainage of
the cell. The different layers were installed on top of the liner which was engineered
in such a way that the leachate flows by gravity towards the outlet of the cell.
In order to extend the lifespan of the first cell, Bayawan City implemented various
measures to minimize the disposal of residual waste. Applied source reduction
methods are backyard composting, source segregation and segregated collection. With
this approach the number of biodegradables collected and transported to the material
recovery facility can be minimized whereas a further segregation is conducted at the
MRF to reduce waste disposal as far as possible. At the material recovery facility, the
recyclables and biodegradables are removed from the delivered waste.

IV. ACKKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author would like to give big appreciation and thanks to the City Environment
and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) for the valuable inputs they provided. Also,
to Engr. Antonio S. Aguilar for the suggestions, ideas, and reviewing the document.

V. CONTACT DETAILS

Mr. Robert Kir Valde (UP-Visayas Chemical Engineering Student; BCWMEC

- Intern)
Email address: rtvalde@up.edu.ph
Contact number: +63 997 507 6347
+63 999 825 9508
Engr. Antonio S. Aguilar (BCWMEC Manager; Bayawan City Assistant
Engineer)
Email address: asaguilarjr@gmail.com
Contact number: +63 917 790 4466

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VI. REFERENCES

Boorsma, J.D., Gaudiel, R.G., Paul, J. G. (2011). International Conference on Solid

Waste 2011 Moving Towards Sustainable Resource Management.

Boorsma, J. D., & Paul, J. G. (2009). ESTABLISHMENT OF A WASTE

MANAGEMENT AND ECOLOGY CENTER IN BAYAWAN CITY , NEGROS
ORIENTAL , PHILIPPINES. 1–12.

El-Fadel et al. 1995. Environmental impacts of solid waste land filling, Journal of
Environmental Management (1997) 50 pg 1-25

Freudenrich, C. Ph.D. "How Landfills Work" 16 October 2000. HowStuffWorks.com.

<https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/landfill.htm>
11 July 2019)

Jarvie, M. E. (2018). Anaerobic Digestion. Retrieved July 10, 2019, from Encyclopædia
Britannica, inc.: https://www.britannica.com/science/anaerobic-digestion

Paul, J. G., 2003. Implementation of a Clay Liner Landfill in Bais City, Negros
Oriental. – Annual Conference of the Solid Waste Association of the Philippines
(SWAPP), October 6-8, 2003, Dumaguete City, Philippines, 21 pages.
Paul J. et al., 2008. Assessment of composting approaches to enhance waste
management systems in rural areas in the Philippines, International Conference
Orbit 2008, Wageningen, The Netherlands, October 13-15, 2008

Wolter, C. (2019). Toxic waste, explained. Retrieved July 8, 2019, from National
Geographic website: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-
warming/toxic-waste/

Worm Farm Facts, 2012. African Night Crawler:

[http://www.wormfarmfacts.com/African-Night-Crawler.html]

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