Two Iloilo towns are putting their garbage ‘on the cloud’

ILOILO CITY – Passi City and Dumangas are piloting a digital system to improve how local government units (LGUs) record and track solid waste, with waste management teams and eco-aides from 20 barangays trained to use a web-based data recording application.

The two-day training, held Sept. 14-15, focused on digital recording and tracking of waste collected from households, the informal waste sector, and community collection points.

The system records the volume and type of waste and feeds the information into the local government’s waste database, allowing waste management teams to generate summaries of local waste generation and identify areas for segregation, recovery, and diversion.

In Passi City, the system is being piloted in 17 clustered barangays, with the initiative intended to provide a model for possible expansion across Iloilo province.

The system builds on Project AGUBAY of Central Philippine University, which combines digital waste tracking with community-level segregation and shared data management.

Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, requires LGUs to segregate waste at source, operate materials recovery facilities, and prepare 10-year solid waste management plans, all of which depend on reliable data on how much waste communities generate and what it is made of.

The capacity-building activity is part of the PH Plastics Circularity Project implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Philippines with support from The Coca-Cola Foundation.

The project works with local partners to promote practical and data-driven approaches to plastic circularity in Iloilo.

The digital system is intended to give LGUs more consistent information on the amount and types of waste generated and collected in communities, replacing paper-based logs that are difficult to consolidate and compare across barangays.