Smoky Mountain Case Study

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The poorest of the poor among the people of the Philippines has been described to live in Smoky Mountain which is located in the city of Quezon. It is a 22-hectare land that is used as an open dumpsite where most of the garbage of the country’s capital is disposed of. Seeing that 3,000 unit-tons of solid waste has been deposited here everyday since the year 1993, trash can be seen piled as high as a seven-foot story building which would often result in garbage-slides. (Florano E., 2015). Moreover, the stench is also described to be unbearable. According to an insight of a journalist, “There is no inch of ground that is not covered in garbage. These would include a variety of plastics, bottles, aluminum, and cardboards.” Despite all of these, however, there are still…show more content…
Through the inquiry of Orduna, Macasusi recounted the time when she was still a scavenger. It was sometime in 1999 when she was only able to earn sixteen pesos a day as she thought that she could only collect utensils and plastic cups. A month in the trade, however, she was able to add an additional 150 php to the meager income of 300 php a day that her husband is able to provide as a construction worker. After six months, her whole family decided to live in the dumpsite. Furthermore, her husband also decided to become a scavenger around this time as he could not find any decent paying jobs. Unfortunately in 2000, Macasusi and her family lost their main source of income after the infamous garbage-slide killed 218 people. The family truly evacuated and returned to their previous home after the area around them were starting to burn unannounced. These were caused by biogas that were emitted by the rotting garbage surrounding them. For the next three months, she was sharing 300php worth of money a day with her best friend which they earned after scavenging for seven hours during the
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