BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — For decades, Baguio City has poured millions into hauling tons of trash out of the highlands and into far-off landfills.

That costly, endless cycle is about to shift: with a new 150,000-ton annual capacity Central Materials Recovery Facility in Barangay Dontogan now granted its Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC), the city is finally positioning itself to process, segregate, and drastically reduce its urban waste right on home soil.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources–Cordillera Administrative Region formally awarded the environmental clearance to the City Government Unit of Baguio recently.

The ceremony was led by DENR Secretary Juan Miguel T. Cuna, Regional Executive Director Paquito T. Moreno, Jr., and Environmental Management Bureau Regional Director Jean C. Borromeo, with Baguio City Vice Mayor Faustino A. Olowan accepting the clearance on behalf of the local government.

According to a project brief submitted to the DENR-CAR, spanning 10,944 square meters, the mechanized sorting and recovery facility is engineered to process municipal waste through heavy-duty industrial machinery and strict environmental safeguards.

The site features a 1,600-square-meter main building with a 400-square-meter enclosed tipping floor fitted with PVC curtains, alongside a 968-square-meter structure designated for storage and plastic shredding.

Logistics and site safety are supported by dedicated truck landing and parking zones, 3,107 square meters of access roads, open work slabs, comprehensive drainage systems, and reinforced concrete-barrier retaining walls. To cushion its ecological footprint, 2,240 square meters of cleared land will be re-vegetated with endemic trees planted in a staggered grid.

Inside, the facility will deploy specialized equipment—including box feeders, debaggers, trommel screens, 10-ton composting units, air separators, illuminated sorting platforms, and hydraulic balers—to maximize materials recovery.

Air quality and odor control within the complex will be managed through high-capacity exhaust systems, bio enzymatic misters, HEPA-filter vacuums, and wet-packed scrubbers specifically engineered to neutralize hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and methane emissions.

The CMRF’s primary goal is to improve waste segregation, recovery, and reduction hence its contribution in mitigating environmental impacts of urban waste on the city’s ecosystems and lowering costs for hauling services to external landfills, with its construction already under way.

As per the Baguio City Public Information Office (PIO), Baguio spends up to 200 million pesos annually just to haul the city’s residual waste to the Urdaneta City engineered sanitary landfill.

Beyond streamlining solid waste operations, the Central MRF offers Baguio City a clear path toward reducing its heavy waste management costs.

The ECC grant serves as DENR-CAR’s contribution to the committed partnership with the Baguio LGU in supporting sustainable waste management and local development. It is through initiatives like this that DENR-CAR upholds its core values in engaging with local communities and compliance clearances.

Apart from the ECC, the project has been issued with a Protected Area Management Board Clearance by the Marcos Highway Watershed Forest Reserve Protected Area Management Board.