In order to address a mounting MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) management problem, the City Waste Management Office (CWMO) of the local municipality of SM City Marikina utilized Asher as the backbone of their ongoing environmental programme to clean up the city’s wastes.

The main concern of Marikina’s waste concerns are the high running cost of waste collection and disposal, largely on manpower and transportation. They ingeniously addressed this by distributing plastic bags to residences and unemployed people to manage and collect trash from households and the streets. The municipal rewards every 30kg of trash brought to its EWA centre with voucher that can be exchanged for food and clothing at the local supermarkets. The collections happen on the first Friday and Saturday of the month, 8:00am – 2:00pm. This programme is integrated into the city’s larger environmental efforts, making it a huge success.

At the core of this is Asher, who processes all the wastes funnelled to it cost-efficiently before selling the ashes generated back to organic farmers on a daily basis. It is now one of the main revenue streams for the municipal.

The municipal has now successfully turned Marikina into one of the cleanest cities in Philippines and the same programme is currently being replicated to the other part of the country.