#The scavengers generator

The 3,000 scavengers now working at the waste facility all belong to the Payatas Alliance Recycling Exchange. 'The idea was to take them on board, to use their know-how for collecting recyclable waste while improving their living conditions.' 'After the disaster we got all the scavengers and junk shop owners together,' says Louis Sabater, an engineer working for the PPAF. But Quezon City's real innovation lies in the way it has integrated the informal economy in its waste management system. The electricity powers street lights in Payatas and a workshop open to residents at the weekend. This was the first waste-management project to be funded in Southeast Asia as part of the mechanisms introduced by the Kyoto protocol to combat climate change.

#The scavengers generator

It is used to fire an electricity generator on the spot. Dotted around the facility are vents for recovering the bio-gas released by decomposing waste. The old landfill sites have been consolidated and grassed over, in preparation for the construction of an eco-park. The disposal facility is now supervised and managed by a private operator. The stink of rotting waste haunts the area around the disposal facility, the site of stalls and junk shops that buy finds from the scavengers. Payatas is one of the poorest parts of the Philippine capital, with almost 40% of the active population unemployed and nearly half the residents earning less than 4,000 Philippine pesos ($100) a month, according to the Payatas Poverty Alleviation Foundation (PPAF). The dump was closed, but the local authorities soon had to reopen it, for lack of any other location to dispose of the 1,200 tonnes of household waste produced daily by the 2.9 million residents of Quezon City.

A mountain of waste collapsed, engulfing a shanty town below and killing some 300 people.