In Barangay 128, Tondo, Manila, the smell used to arrive before the floodwaters did.

For years, residents living between the shadow of Smokey Mountain and the edge of Manila Bay carried the burden of Metro Manila’s waste problem in the most intimate ways: the sour odor of rotting garbage drifting into homes, waterways choked with plastic, and floodwaters that rose frighteningly fast after even a brief downpour.

“Our barangay is just beside Smokey Mountain,” barangay councilor Wendy Cañeda, 32, said, referring to the cause and source of foul odor. “We are getting too much pollution. Bad whiff from trash, mounds of garbage everywhere you go, and just a little rain, flood quickly rising waist deep.”

Today, the tides are turning in favor of the residents of Barangay 128.

At the center of that shift is the Eco-Ikot Center, established in October 2024 under the Enhancement of Marine Litter Management in Manila Bay (EMLM) Project, a five-year partnership of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the local barangay, CORA, the Korea International Cooperation Agency, and United States Agency for International Aid to reduce marine litter across Manila Bay.

Under the EMLM project, communities are being mobilized not only to remove waste, but to interrupt the cycle that sends plastics from homes and streets into waterways and eventually into Manila Bay. The initiative has also supported cleanups, strengthened local waste management capacities, and created participation opportunities for women, youth, and persons with disabilities.

According to DENR Secretary Juan Miguel Cuna, the project forms part of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s directions for a whole-of-society approach to tackle over 190 kilometers of heavily polluted coastline. 

“The government strategy is to shift toward science-based policies, strict local government unit enforcement, and modernized clean-up operations,” he explained.

For Cañeda and her neighbors, the intervention became personal. She said the Eco-Ikot Center helped reshape habits inside the community while opening new opportunities, particularly for women.

“The people became disciplined in segregation and waste management. They slowly became part of our daily life,” she said. “The women also got additional livelihood and there were more spaces for planting.”

Each day, residents, schools, and nearby establishments bring recyclable materials to the center, where wastes are sorted, weighed, and processed. In exchange, participants accumulate points based on the weight of their recyclables, which they can later trade for rice, vegetables, eco-bags, bamboo products, shirts, and other household necessities.

“Abour five to 10 people go here daily to bring recyclable waste. Sometimes each person brings 5 to 10 kilos,” shared 47-year-old Rhea Villamor, one of seven Eco-Ikot Women Champions permanently managing the facility.

For Caneda, Villamor and many others in Barangay 128, the system has become more than an environmental campaign. It has become an additional source of stability.

Carolina Davan, 54, has lived in the same barangay for two decades. Before the Eco-Ikot Center opened, she earned irregular income through street sweeping and other small jobs. Now, she supplements their household budget by sorting and trading recyclable waste.

“I help them collect trash and segregate recyclables,” Davan said. 

“The transformation is measured less in statistics than in what no longer overwhelms their community: fewer piles of unmanaged waste, cleaner surroundings, and floodwaters that no longer rise as quickly as they once did,” Cuna said.

For the families along Manila Bay’s troubled shoreline, that is dignity finally returning to their homes.