Our garbage is causing our floods

By Antonio Calleja

Why waste management is about more than just the landfill

With the Calajunan landfill nearing closure, most people are asking a simple question: where will the garbage go next? It is a fair concern. A city cannot function without a place to dispose of its waste. But focusing only on the next landfill risks missing the larger issue. The real problem is not just where we dump our waste. It is how much waste we produce, how we manage it before it reaches the truck, and where it ends up when the system fails.

Because here is the uncomfortable truth: the same plastic that fills our landfill is also clogging our drainage systems. And when drains clog, our streets flood.

For years, our waste system has followed a straightforward pattern. Garbage is collected, loaded onto trucks, and transported to a landfill. Once it leaves our homes and businesses, we assume the problem is solved. Yet that linear model—collect, haul, dump—hides deeper consequences. As landfills fill up, hauling costs increase. Valuable materials that could be reused are buried. Plastic leaks into streets and waterways. And when heavy rain comes, the weakness of the system becomes visible.

Why has waste management struggled in the Philippines—and in cities like Iloilo? The failure has not been the absence of laws. It has been the absence of consistent enforcement, reliable data, and sustained political will. Segregation is often encouraged but rarely enforced. Collection crews are pressured to keep routes fast rather than reject mixed waste. Material recovery facilities are built to comply with mandates but not always supported with proper staffing, equipment, or market linkages. Informal waste pickers operate outside formal systems. Over time, the easier path became hauling everything to a landfill rather than investing in discipline at the source. Convenience replaced compliance, and the system adjusted to that lower standard.

We already have laws that were designed to prevent this. The Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 requires segregation at source. That means biodegradable waste, recyclables, and residual waste should be separated before collection. More recently, the Extended Producer Responsibility Act of 2022 required large enterprises to recover a growing percentage of the plastic packaging they introduce into the market. In theory, these laws create a system where less waste reaches landfills and more plastic is recovered by the companies that produce it.

On paper, the framework is strong. In practice, enforcement is uneven. Segregation is often treated as optional. Many material recovery facilities are underutilized. Plastic continues to circulate freely through markets and households, eventually escaping into canals and drainage openings.

More than half of our waste is biodegradable. A significant portion is recyclable plastic. If these streams were properly separated, landfill demand would drop dramatically. Composting would become viable. Recyclable plastics could re-enter value chains. But when everything is mixed together, recovery becomes difficult and expensive. Mixed waste not only fills landfills faster—it also increases the likelihood that plastic will escape into the urban environment.

The connection between waste and flooding is not theoretical. During heavy rainfall, drainage grates are often covered with sachets, wrappers, and plastic bags. Some of these materials are removed manually. Many slip through the grates and travel underground. Plastic does not decompose. It floats, binds with sediment, and accumulates at pipe bends and junctions. Even a partially obstructed pipe loses significant drainage capacity. A drainage system does not need to be fully clogged to fail. During intense rainfall, a reduction in flow capacity of even twenty or thirty percent can be enough to cause surface flooding.

If Iloilo City wants to signal serious intent quickly, it does not need to wait for a new landfill or a massive infrastructure program. It can begin with visible, disciplined actions. The city can strictly enforce segregation at source and instruct collection crews to refuse mixed waste after a transition period. It can require large commercial establishments to present proof of compliance with national EPR registration as part of business permit renewal. It can install basic weighing and digital tracking at material recovery facilities to generate credible waste data. It can launch a targeted crackdown on single-use plastics in public markets and government offices. And it can begin a systematic inspection and cleaning program of major drainage lines, coupled with public reporting of findings. None of these steps require new national laws. They require administrative resolve. Visible enforcement, consistent data, and public transparency would immediately demonstrate that waste reform is no longer rhetorical.

At the same time, we must be honest about the end goal. Recycling is not the finish line. It is a transition strategy. The long-term objective should be reducing — and eventually ending — unnecessary single-use plastic in everyday circulation. That will not happen overnight. Plastic became dominant because it is cheap, lightweight, and convenient. Replacing it requires two difficult shifts: changing consumer behavior and developing cost-effective alternatives. Businesses must find packaging that is both affordable and environmentally sound. Consumers must adjust habits shaped by decades of convenience. Government must create incentives that make better choices viable. This is not a one-year campaign. It is a generational shift. But if the destination is unclear, the transition will never begin.

We often blame flooding solely on heavy rainfall or climate change. Those factors matter. But when plastic reduces the effective capacity of drainage infrastructure, we are shrinking our flood defenses from the inside. We widen roads, build pumps, and dredge canals, yet allow the same plastic that caused the blockage to re-enter the system.

The Extended Producer Responsibility law is intended to help address this by requiring large companies to take responsibility for the plastic they put into the market. The system is regulated by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which oversees registration and compliance. In principle, this shifts some of the financial burden away from local governments and onto producers. But the effectiveness of the system depends on accurate reporting, credible recovery, and proper monitoring. If plastic volumes are underreported or recovery is counted only on paper, the physical plastic may still end up in our drainage systems.

Local governments cannot change national recovery targets, nor should they attempt to override national authority. But they can strengthen enforcement at the local level. They can require proof of EPR registration when renewing business permits. They can digitize waste data. They can strictly enforce segregation at source. They can regulate single-use plastics under their police powers. The most powerful reform tool is not necessarily a higher recovery percentage. It is better local data and consistent enforcement.

When streets flood, we see water. What we do not see is the chain of small failures that led to that moment: the plastic bag thrown away carelessly, the unsegregated waste collected without inspection, the recovery facility that did not function properly, the pipe that was never inspected. Flooding is often the final symptom of upstream governance gaps.

The closure of a landfill should not trigger a simple search for a new dumping ground. It should prompt a more fundamental question about urban maturity. Are we prepared to reduce the waste that demands disposal? Are we willing to enforce segregation consistently? Are we ready to treat plastic leakage as a flood risk rather than merely a cleanliness issue?

Waste management is not just about keeping streets tidy. It affects public health, infrastructure durability, city finances, and resilience. When we fix waste upstream, we reduce problems downstream—literally. The plastic blocking our drainage openings is not random litter. It is a signal that our systems are not aligned.

If we continue to treat waste, flood control, and business regulation as separate conversations, we will keep solving the same crisis repeatedly. But if we recognize that garbage can become floodwater, then waste reform becomes what it truly is: not simply an environmental agenda, but a city-building imperative.

Urban Signals is the commentary platform of Antonio Calleja, a macroeconomics, urban policy and regional growth dynamics analyst focusing on metropolitan development, infrastructure finance, and institutional reform in emerging Philippine growth centers.