From Catastrophe to Legislation: The Payatas Dumpsite and the Transition to Ecological Solid Waste Management

The 2000 Payatas landfill collapse in Quezon City, Philippines in which hundreds of people were crushed by an avalanche of trash after a landslide at a landfill created by illegal trash disposal was a critical destabilizing event that changed the solid waste governance regime for the Philippines. It led to the passing of Republic Act 9003 (Ecological Solid Waste Management Act). Twenty plus years have passed since this event and while there has been progress towards ecological solid waste management it is still incomplete. Progress occurred at the National Level through legislation, however, local governments continue to struggle implementing the law due to ongoing practices of open dumping, and continued marginalization of community based actors.This study examines the Payatas transition as a case of sustainability in the Philippines utilizing four theories from transition management literature: (1) governance principles of diversity, dynamics & complexity; (2) The Transition Management Cycle that includes arena-building, visioning, experimentation & monitoring; (3) The X-Curve Framework developed by Hebinck et al. (2022), analyzing the case along the paths of Breakdown/Buildup and evaluating the composite regime strength score for each pathway; and (4) Evaluating government, market & community coordinating mechanisms. Results indicate persistent deficits in co-production among stakeholders, long-standing capacity shortfalls in funding and technical capabilities on the part of LGUs, low utilization of the knowledge and skills provided by informal waste sector workers, and lack of formally established multi-stakeholder transition arenas. Based upon a SWOT Analysis of the Payatas Community, four transitional action plans are suggested: Formalize community enterprises; Establish a community health, housing & human capital program; Develop community-led Zero-Waste Hubs with a digital monitoring system and integrated digital markets platform; create a community political voice/governance platform.