Monday, July 28, 2008 City residents forced to segregate
SOMETHING positive came out from all that stench and litter seen in Baguio's streets lately.
If the city had difficulty implementing waste segregation before, this time around, majority of the residents through the help of barangay officials cooperated and kept waste in their homes, pending the city's identification of a site on where to dump its waste after the Irisan open dump was barricaded last July 14.
"It's a good thing that this happened at least households were compelled to segregate," City Administrator Peter Fianza said.
Neighboring towns, individuals and institutions also offered to help Baguio, in terms of technical support and assistance for the location of additional areas for either a landfill or a temporary dumpsite.
The Philippine Military Academy (PMA), for instance, is now composting some of the city's biodegradable waste while officials of Naguilian and Bauang in La Union Province are also assisting the city in asking their respective municipal councils to allow temporary use of their dumpsites.
Sablan municipal officials are also offering a 12-hectare property for a landfill.
Last year, the City Environment and Parks Management Office (Cepmo) imposed the segregation at source policy, in compliance with provisions of the Solid Waste Management Act. Then, the Irisan dumpsite has been converted into a controlled dump facility, which was designed to accommodate only residual waste.
The Cepmo then imposed a no collection policy. This however resulted in more garbage scattered in the barangays and the business district for because while unsegregated waste were not collected, these were left on the streets and later on scattered by stray animals.
As a result, the Cepmo collected even unsegregated waste.
After the July 14 barricade, Fianza said household owners cooperated by not bringing out garbage until barangay officials are advised when the next collection will be.
Since the barricade, garbage collection has been irregular.
As remedial measure, the city has inked a deal with a private hauler. Since Wednesday, the city's residual and biodegradable waste has been transported to Capas, Tarlac.
With regard to the sanitary landfill, Fianza said the city is still obtaining the nod of residents of Virac in Itogon, Benguet. Compared to the first public hearing, residents have become more receptive to the idea of how an engineered sanitary landfill operates.
He said it would still be a long way to go in terms of obtaining a definite response from residents living near the eyed landfill. The concurrence of the barangay and municipal councils aside from technical aspects are pre-requisites before the Environmental Management Bureau issues an environmental compliance certificate. (RO)
