Davao LGU picks up solid waste management lessons from Japan’s Kitakyushu City

A team of government officials from Davao City hope to bring lessons from Japan’s solid waste management model into ongoing efforts to recycle solid wastes in Davao City.

The recent visit of Davao City officials to Kitakyushu City, Japan was part of an ongoing cooperation of Davao and Kitakyushu Cities under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)’s technical cooperation for the grassroots project, Improvement of Municipal Solid Waste Management System in Davao City.

This project is the second phase following a completed first phase cooperation from 2017 to 2020 which focused on reducing and segregating wastes at sources. During the implementation of the first phase of the project, the need to properly collect wastes and stop leakage into residential areas, rivers, and the ocean, to avoid pollution became clear.

“We used to only see Kitakyushu’s waste management efforts in pictures or documents, and the visit in Japan showed us convincing examples on their entire process of garbage reduction, segregation, collection, recycling to disposal,” said Rodolfo Caducoy of the Davao City Environment and Natural Resources Office.

The team from Davao City visited Kitakyushu’s garbage collection points, recycling plants, and waste processing facilities. They also visited an elementary school in Kitakyushu to understand well-prepared environmental education practices.

Kitakyushu, one of Japan’s industrial zones, is known for its advanced solid waste management system. The city collaborates with various stakeholders such as research institutes, business operators, non-profit organizations, and residents, forming what they coin as a ‘material-cycle society’.

The aim of Davao City’s partnership with the Japanese city is to establish solid waste management system in the target zone of Barangay Bucana through improving the segregation, collection and transportation systems for general waste and recyclables.

To date, Davao City together with the team of Kitakyushu has piloted source segregation and efficient collection and transportation of wastes in selected Puroks in Barangay Bucana, which will be expanded to wider zones.

As part of the cooperation, the Kitakyushu team also led a seminar on solid waste management in Davao City that focus on potential solutions for Davao’s solid waste challenges and sharing of lessons learned on the activities done during the Purok trial.