Mothers turn garbage into ‘garbags’

By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon

STO. DOMINGO, ALBAY—WITH a mother’s touch, garbage foil and plastic sheets transform into colorful, fashionable, and useful bags in Barangay Salvacion here.

Wittily labeled “Garbags,” coined from the words “garbage” and “bags,” these recycled handicrafts are being made by members of the Barangay Salvacion Mothers’ Club.

The mothers only started making the bags last October.

The idea of making bags out of trash was conceived in a handicraft contest organized by the club during the village fiesta last year.

Formed in 2005, the club would also hold mothers’ classes every two weeks on different issues—nutrition, child care, gardening, food preparation, health, and child discipline.

Glenda Newhall, the club’s adviser, says beautiful designs emerged out of pieces of garbage, which the villagers turned into hats, slippers and bags.

“The items made out of recycled materials, like foil and plastic packs, turned out to be beautiful and we thought they were salable. This motivated the mothers to make bags for a living,” Newhall says.

Families in Barangay Salvacion needed an alternative source of income following the onslaught of Supertyphoon “Reming,” which devastated agricultural lands.

The villagers, mostly farmers and fishermen, lost regular income since agricultural products like coconut and anahaw would take time to recover fully. The destroyed fishing boats could not be immediately replaced.

The housewives found hope in making bags out of recycled materials.

Product prices range from P50 for a wallet to P300 for an abaca sando bag.

Myrna Belardo, 43, mothers’ club vice chair, says making bags also allows housewives to share their thoughts and talents.

Many hands work together to craft just one bag.

“We have different skills. One may be good in cutting, another may be good in sewing, while still another may be good in weaving. We combine all our talents to create our products,” Belardo, a mother of five children, says in Filipino.

Through making bags, the housewives developed closer ties.

Newhall says that since some of the mothers used to weave “banig” while others used to work in “patahian,” they are skilled even without formal training.

Belardo says they design and make the bags themselves.

Anita Revadavia says the mothers would treat their work as an enjoyable hobby.

Work starts at 8 a.m. at Barangay Salvacion’s multipurpose center. This favors some mothers, whose children are attending day care classes in the adjacent room.

“Some of us would also work at home, once we have finished the household chores. We don’t waste time because we dream of bulk orders someday,” Revadavia says.

Newhall says the biggest challenge they are facing is tapping the export market.

“This kind of product has great market potentials in other countries because of its novelty. We also eye on overseas Filipino workers as potential market,” Newhall says.

Belardo says the bestsellers are the useful grocery bags, which are made of juice packs and the fashionable shoulder bags accentuated with abaca.

She says every batch of “Garbags” were sold out to personal contacts and foreigners.

“We hope to have our own place downtown or in Legazpi City, so that our products will be known to many,” Belardo says.

Saving the environment

While the mothers earn extra from making bags out of recycled materials, they also help save the environment.

A retired nurse, Newhall says she has seen that improper waste management has been choking their rivers, polluting their beaches, creating breeding grounds for disease-carrying insects.

“The children would commonly have respiratory problems due to fumes of burning garbage,” says Newhall, who opened a free clinic for the Salvacion villagers.

“Garbags,” says Newhall, has four goals: to boost the income of families, to recycle and reuse trash, to empower women, and to enable the mothers to develop and manage their own business.