BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – The City General Services Office (GSO) said that residents and businesses in the city produce around five hundred fifty tons of mixed waste daily that makes solid waste management one of the local government’s primordial concerns that needs varied solutions.
GSO head Eugene Buyucan said that some 300 tons of the city’s generated waste are collected, 100 tons are recyclables and the remaining volume is being managed by the big companies operating in the different parts of the city.
He admitted that there is an increasing volume of generated waste in the city because of the continuous increase in people migrating from other places and businesses wanting to operate in the urban center.
However, the GSO official claimed that with the ongoing strict implementation of segregation at source, the sorting of the recyclables among other strategies, the volume of the residual waste being hauled out of the city will continue to decline.
Buyucan disclosed that for this year, the local government earmarked some PhP192 million for the hauling and tipping fees that will be paid by the city in the disposal of the residual waste in identified solid waste facilities in the lowlands.
According to him, the closure of the Capas engineered sanitary landfill in Tarlac and the temporary setback suffered by the landfill in Urdaneta City, Pangasinan nearly had a great impact on the city’s resources for hauling.
However, the city government department head stated that concerned officials were able to negotiate with the management of the Porac engineered sanitary landfill in Pampanga and the operator of another landfill in Urdaneta City, Pangasinan that allowed the city to maximize the use of its available resources to continuously haul the residual waste and properly dispose of the same.
Buyucan rallied the residents and business owners to strictly comply with the regulations that had been imposed on the disposal and collection of their generated waste to ensure the maintenance of cleanliness and orderliness in their barangays and avoid the piling up of garbage in their respective areas.
Further, he said that the city always ensure that the garbage being brought out by the people during the collection schedules in the designated pick up points will be immediately collected except in some few cases that the city’s garbage trucks will be encountering technical concerns that might cause temporary delays. (BaguioPIO)
