Wild Asia - Waste Ahoy in Peak Kantel- Waste Management System in Cambodian Floating Communities

Waste Ahoy in Peak Kantel- Waste Management System in Cambodian Floating Communities

by Osmose

Working with community development in Cambodia since 1999, Osmose, a recipient of Seed Grants 2008, utilized the grant in creating a waste management system in Peak Kantel Village. ERIC GUERIN writes an update.

Working since 1999 with 3 floating communities in the Prek Toal area, a core zone of the UNESCO Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve, Osmose has progressively built an integrated approach linking conservation, environmental education, ecotourism, and improvement of the livelihood of the poorest families.

The flooded forest of Prek Toal is unique in Southeast Asia for its pristine flooded forest, its record capture fisheries and it harbors the most significant large waterbird colonies in Southeast Asia. Osmose believes that this exceptional environment is the villagers' main asset for development.

In floating villages of the Tonle Sap lake waste are often discharged into the water. There is indeed no ground to store waste.

In 2007 Osmose implemented Community-Based Tourism (CBT) in Peak Kantel village with 17 families, with the support of UNDP-TSCP (Tonle Sap Conservation Project): 6 families are involved in paddling: for the village tour, the visit of the bird sanctuary and Osmose environmental education program.

1 woman is the CBT facilitator
2 women prepare food (breakfast, lunch, diner) for the tourists
4 families are involved for home stays and 1 facilitator coordinates them
3 families are activity presenters during the village tour

100 % of CBT, food and home stays income is shared among the villagers. They save part of the income in a community box and use it to renew the material or to buy new equipment. Community-Based Tourism represents an income complementary to fishing for the villagers without damaging the environment.

As part of its Environmental Education program, Osmose has implemented a waste collection scheme with the children of the village. In a first step, the waste was stored behind the kitchen of the community based restaurant. They were separated, recycled, and the non-recyclable waste was burned when the lake's water level have receded (during 4 months each year).

The grants allocated by Wild Asia Seed Grant in December 2008, has contributed to:

1. Build a floating platform to store the waste away from the kitchen,

2. Distribute waste bins (12) to public places, families involved in community-based tourism and small-scale businesses, in order to increase the amount of collected waste.

Unfortunately, the project is victim of its success: the villagers are so enthusiastic to contribute to the improvement of their environment by collecting and bringing their waste to the new platform that it is already overfilled (after only 2 months of functioning). Luckily the low water season is close and the villagers will soon be able to burn the waste.

But it appears urgent to implement the next step of the waste management in the village by:

1. Improving the recycling chain

2. Setting up a process that allows a progressive burnt of the waste on the floating platform.

Osmose is already working on this new issue and we hope to have the pleasure to inform you soon of the next part of the story of the Waste of Peak Kantel.

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Original URL: http://www.wildasia.org/main.cfm/library/Osmose_Waste_Management

Published: 23 June 2009