Project “Social Waste Management Center of Battambang (SAB)”

Overview

The Project “Social Waste Management Centre Battambang”, starting in December 2008 and ending in December 2010is another outcome of the close cooperation between the Thuringian – Cambodian Association (TKG) from Germany and the Cambodian Education and Waste Management Organization (COMPED), based in Phnom Penh. The Project site is located on the Dumpsite in Battambang. The project´s aim is to improve the waste pickers life conditions, the working conditions as well as raising their income and giving free education to their children. Additionally, the eco-friendliness and the sustainability shall be improved by implementing and teaching waste management in ways of more professional sorting to sell more recyclable waste and to compost the biodegradable waste. Additionally, the farmers around the dumpsite, who present our second target group, shall be trained to be more aware of eco-friendly farming. Also, their income shall be raised by usage of compost. The project includes the construction of three buildings, such as a social center, a sorting place for the delivered waste from the city of Battambang to the dumpsite and a composting place. To reach the aims of our Project we are working on four different main fields:
• founding up a cooperative of waste pickers
• producing compost
• setting up a school for all children
• organizing trainings for different target groups

Founding a Cooperative of waste pickers

Right now, the waste pickers work by their own, sort the waste and capture around 5% of all the recyclable waste to sell it later. This is how they make an income of 20-40$ per family and month. We want to found a waste pickercooperative where they all work together to strengthen their workforce. According to this we offer them more professional equipment and a better surrounding like the sorting place so that the rate of collected recyclable waste increases. On top of that, all the waste will be collected, stored and be sold only one time a week in bigger amounts, so that we can compete with the conventional whole sellers and to get a higher price in the end which will be paid according to the amount of the collected waste to the waste pickers. This cooperative is only in their interest.

Producing Compost

As it is already written above, it is not only the recyclable waste that will be sorted out but also the biodegradable waste which is the biggest part (between 50 and 80%) of the whole waste, delivered to the dumpsite. Therefore we´ve got specialized and trained employees, sorting out the biodegradable waste and organizing the composting. The Compost will be sold; the income is used to run our whole composting plant as well as parts of the social center. To promote the use of compost which is still widely unknown in farmers’ communities we started different kinds of trainings.

Setting up a school for all children

Through improving the working conditions of the waste pickers we induce a rise of their income. That enables them to abandon their children´s workforce. This is how we reach another aim of the project: the education of the children. After they are not needed anymore to feed the family we can make sure that they receive a proper education. Fundraising has already started, 30 children get a godparent from Germany who pays money in a pool we use to equip a school which is integrated in our social center. The money is also used to pay a teacher, school materials, school uniforms and other necessary things the students need but which their parents’ can´t provide. Nevertheless, the school on the Project site is not a compensation for the attendance of a public school but a necessary supplement to a normal education to support those who don´t have the best presuppositions, cause by their social background. On top of that, our teacher offers also mental support to the waste picker families and free education to the adults. The school providing lessons in mathematics, khmer and english is completely free.

Organizing trainings for different target groups

According to our main project aims we organized different kinds of trainings for our main target groups, the farmers and the waste pickers. In detail we do the following trainings:
• For 30 waste pickers 36 trainings, focused on the issues of hygiene, waste management, awareness for toxic waste and recyclable waste
• 4 info days for the whole community around the project site to garner their support for our project
• 6 times four days training for each 20 multiplicators (“training of the trainers”) in the fields of composting, biological waste, fertilization
• 24 one day training for each 50 farmers to build up knowledge in the fields of composting, show the advantages of composting and of using compost as bio-fertilizer as well as advantages of substitution of chemical fertilizer though compost and promotion of the compost, produced on our composting plant
• Advisory of farmers through the multiplicators in their home community