From plastic bottles to decorative art

As lovely as suncatchers made of Venice’s famed murano glass, but not as fragile, Virgilio Villaflor’s creations are also environment-friendly.

The art of crafting coconut trees, flowering plants and other flora from 1.5-liter softdrink bottles "was taught to me by someone I met by chance on a jeepney last year. We started talking, and I invited him to visit me at my house," Villaflor said.

When this man stayed over at his house, Villaflor said he thought that the man’s hands were just doing busywork with the softdrink bottle — until the man showed him a tree in full foliage, complete with birds he could have imagined singing.

"All you need is a cutter and a lit mosquito coil," Villaflor said, adding that whatever you fashion from these bottles, "that’s already your style."

Villaflor teaches the neighborhood children how to craft these plastic plants. He lives in Barangay San Mateo, San Pablo, Laguna, at the end of a street with a slope steep enough to make lesser mortals breathe heavily. Children run literally up and down the street without breaking into a sweat.

He said that for each piece he manages to sell for P100, he gives the child who fashioned it P50. He has trained about 20 children.

While he does not yet actively sell these plastic creations, Villaflor said he is open to orders for corporate giveaways or wedding tokens.

Villaflor said teaching people how to make decorative art out of plastic bottles is his own little way of alleviating the garbage problem and helping people earn a living.

The house he lives in is not just an ordinary house. He calls it the Villaflor Livelihood Training Center, where people can learn how to make the most out of the waste they generate. The center is still being developed — the floor is hard-packed red soil — but much of Villaflor’s efforts can already be seen.

Upon ascending the stairs leading to his house, a visitor sees what Villaflor calls his "material recovery facility," basically a warehouse for waste he can still make use of. At the back of this facility are chickens he feeds with scraps from the table.

"No artificial feed for them. They eat what we eat," he said.

A few feet from the dining area, where Villaflor and his wife Leonila also receive visitors, is a catfish tank measuring 1x6x1 meters. Half of the surface of the water is covered by succulent, startlingly green kangkong.

Villaflor tosses some pieces of bread into the tank, and the water starts to roil with the frenzied feeding of catfish. "There are about 100 heads," he said.

The secret to making sure the water does not become stagnant, he said, is the center’s own "water impounding system." For the catfish tank, the excess rainwater flushes out the stagnant water through a pipe located a few inches below its brim.

He said rainwater is collected into a covered tank and this water can be used to launder clothes and for other chores.

"The water that comes from the mountain, which often destroys plants, is also impounded. This is used to water the plants on sunny days," Villaflor said.

Villaflor’s "backyard" is actually higher than his house, with a slope that is more than 45 degrees. The boundary of his land is marked at the top by a line of coconut trees.

To get to his backyard, a visitor has to climb to his roof deck, which boasts of potted okra plants, hung heavy with their bounty. The roof deck also has a spectacular view of Mt. Makiling.

On one side are his prized hens, easily two kilos without the feathers, that Villaflor said lay at least one egg every day because they are fed leftovers, not hormone-laden feeds.

Villaflor and his wife nimbly negotiate the spaces between the medicinal plants in their backyard. There is a 2x3 meter patch of lemongrass, and other patches of patchouli, citronella, aloe vera and eucalyptus.

He plans to make an insect repellant lotion from the oil extracted from patchouli leaves.

Pointing to a plant with small white flowers that seem to be arranged like an arrow, Villaflor identified it as "taheebo" or "tsaang-gubat" — the tea made from which is advertised on television.

"No one will buy it if you say it’s tsaang-gubat," he said with a shrug.

Another of Villaflor’s plans is to start making handmade paper from lemongrass and citronella leaves that have been pressed for their oil.

He also plans to put up small cottages in his backyard so that he can invite guests to spend a few days with them.

He credits all this — Villaflor makes a sweeping gesture to take in the plants, the water impounding system, and the rest of the center — to the information and assistance provided by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), which he started to cover as a journalist two years ago.

Villaflor’s main source of income is publishing two community newspapers: Ang Dyaryo Natin for Laguna and Balayan Bay News for Batangas. He plans to open another community newspaper in Cavite.

"Walang basurang hindi pinakikinabangan sa center na ito — ang mga nabubulok nang punong kahoy, mga mamasa-masang basura ay ginagawa ditong organic fertilizer. Ito’y hinahaluan lang ng kusot mula sa pinaglagarian ng kahoy (No garbage is wasted in the center — decaying wood and wet waste are made into organic fertilizer. This is done by mixing in sawdust)," he said.

Villaflor added that what he wishes to prove by establishing his center is that "a community can stand on its own and not depend on funds from the local or national government."