Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (RA 9003): A Major Step to Better Solid Waste Management in the Philippines Grace P. Sapuay Solid Waste Management Association of the Philippines UG-9 Cityland 8, #98 Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue, Makati City 1200 Philippines E-mail: gracepsapuay@yahoo.com Abstract: This paper presents practical analysis of the salient features of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (Republic Act 9003). It also presents a number of constraints and somewhat imperfections, and the disadvantages in the implementation by the local governments. Accordingly, a number of recommendations for amendments are included so that the law can better address the solid waste problems of the entire Philippine archipelago. Likewise, it is hoped that this paper can provide some insights towards improvement of solid waste management in Southeast Asia. Keywords: Solid waste, management, dumpsites 1 INTRODUCTION Nationwide, solid waste management (SWM) has not been among the top priorities in most local government units (LGUs). Generally, people think that as long as garbage is collected from their households, their garbage problem has been solved. For most local chief executives, SWM is about collection of garbage. As long as the mound of garbage is collected it is a problem of “out of sight and out of mind” (ADB, 2004). In many LGUs, solid waste is being managed to some extent as mandated by the Local Government Code of 1991 (Chan Robles Group, 1999). However, management here is limited to collection and dumping of garbage into an open dumpsite, oftentimes not properly situated and exposing the public to the risk of airborne infection; the environment, especially the groundwater; to the leaching of toxic chemicals coming from the constituents of the decomposing garbage; and many other such detrimental effects that may occur from exposed dumpsites. Oftentimes, scavengers or wastepickers, most of them families with little children, come to pick waste from the dumps without any means of protective accessories, exposing them to all kinds of disease-causing agents. These waste pickers would sometimes burn the garbage after all that has been gleaned, thus actively polluting the airshed. An example of such an open dumpsite is shown in figure 1. The passage of Republic Act 9003 (RA 9003) puts solid waste management into proper perspective. It is hoped that this law will help to meet the growing need to improve the management of increasing volume of solid wastes generated in the Philippines. Since its signing into law, all local chief executives in the Philippines have been bothered by its implementation or lack of it. Foreign funding has been pouring in to help carry out its implementation. ADB (2004) has carried out a project 51