Making Recycling Work for Manila's Waste Management

Metro Manila is notorious for its solid waste disposal problems - from the city's infamous garbage dumps to its choked and polluted rivers. To help tackle this challenge, a new study has looked into how solid waste management programs should be designed and implemented. It found that households are generally willing to separate and recycle waste and that many already do so, particularly for newspaper. Given this, it should be possible for local governments to implement effective projects. New national waste management legislation provides a "wake up call" to do so. The study examined attitudes and behavior of households toward waste management in two middle-income barangays (subdivisions) in Metro Manila.