Local product that “kills” bacteria could end smelly landfills, dengue


A Cebu-based firm has developed a new product that could be the solution on household and industrial wastes.

“Enzumo Plus! does not only eliminate the bad bacteria that is known to grow in unregulated landfills, it also leaves pleasant-smelling scent because of the citronella we put in this product,” said Lactobiotics Worldwide, Inc. chief executive officer Gigi Sanchez.

Sanchez, an engineer herself, said 100 percent of the odor that comes from the decaying waste can be removed by Enzumo Plus!, a product she helped invented following the mounting problems on stinky dumpsites not only in Cebu but in the whole Philippines. Sanchez is the daughter of the late Cebu Vice Governor Greg Sanchez, and a former Cebu Provincial Board member herself.

Sanchez said the problem on waste management in industrial facilities and even beach resorts is mounting, which has prompted the national government to shutdown Boracay Island, which the President himself tagged as a “cesspool of wastes”. She explained that waste – water and hard – if left and untreated and if allowed to flow to the seas, can result to the degradation of the oceans.

“Everything is connected. The awful things we do here in the mainland, if we just let it flow to the seas, it can kill the oceans, too – the resources there, the fishes and other marine lives. So, if we don’t take care of our wastes here, chances are they pile up higher and higher in the landfills thereby causing diseases to us humans, and into the oceans killing the marine lives,” she said.

Enzumo Plus!, she said, can help industrial plants, beach resorts, schools and households in preventing these problems from happening. She said Enzumo Plus! can be diluted in water and then sprayed to the wastes, and right away the citronella scent replaces the foul odor. Sanchez said Enzumo Plus! is already being used in resorts in their water-treatment facilities and waste management and in local government units in the Visayas and Mindanao. She said shopping malls and schools also use the product for their comfort rooms and material recovery facilities.  

This is “not magic”, she said, but a work of the good bacteria of the lactobacillus family – which is common in all of the products of Lactobiotics Worldwide. Lactobacillus eats waste and turns it into lactic acid, thereby eliminating the growth of the bad bacteria. It is the bad bacteria that causes the foul smell coming from the decaying wastes. With the foul smell gone, flies and disease-causing insects also go away with it.

Sanchez said with the bad bacteria gone, flies and mosquitoes will also not thrive in the dumpsites. She noted that schools also have their own wastes, which can become a hive for dengue-carrying mosquitoes, and this can be hazardous to the schoolchildren.

“With Enzumo Plus! we also hope to prevent dengue not only in homes but also in schools,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez said several schools in the Visayas and Mindanao are already using Enzumo Plus! for their wastes.

Enzumo’s citronella scent lingers after the substance is sprayed into the waste, she added. Also, Sanchez said their product, since it is 100-percent organic, is “not harmful to humans, animals and aquatic life,” that it can be used as insect repellant for adults and children.


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