Wednesday, November 14, 2007 Osmeña: Metro Cebu solid waste authority By Antonio V. Osmeña Estatements
AS the gross national product of Metro Cebu grows, so does one of its major gross by-products—garbage or solid waste.
A report published in the Reader’s Digest November issue revealed that out-of-control garbage crisis threatens the physical and economic health of much of Asia. Today, Metro Cebu is now producing unprecedented quantities of rubbish.
Solid waste is any useless, unwanted or discarded material that is not liquid or gas. It is yesterday’s newspaper and junk mail, today’s dinner scraps, leaves and grass clippings, non-returnable bottles and cans, worn-out appliances and furniture, abandoned cars, animal manure, crop residues, food-processing wastes, sewage sludge from waste treatment plants, fly ash from coal-burning electric power plants, mining and industrial wastes, and an array of other cast-off materials.
Although some solid wastes that are hazardous to human health must be isolated and stored, most of the things we throw away should be regarded not as solid waste but as wasted solids, which we need to reuse or recycle.
Garbage has now become an environmental issue, which threatens national economies by impairing competitiveness in world markets, discouraging tourism and hindering industrial development.
Mounting garbage at the Inayawan landfill is an attack on the aesthetic environment of the adjacent South Road Properties (SRP). The Inayawan open dump emits foul odors which could be an irritant to the SRP investors and clients.
Today, Metro Cebu’s cities and towns each have open dump sites and landfill.
An open dump is a land disposal site where solid and liquid wastes are deposited and left uncovered, with little or no regard for control of scavenger, aesthetic, disease, air pollution and water pollution.
A landfill is a slightly upgraded version of an open dump. This type of land waste disposal site is normally located with little, if any, regard for possible pollution of groundwater and surface water due to runoff and leachate leak.
Wastes are covered intermittently with a layer of earth.
A sanitary landfill is a land waste disposal that is located in an area where there is no risk of water pollution from runoff and leaching. There, wastes are spread in thin layers, compacted and covered with a fresh layer of soil each day to minimize pests, diseases, air and water pollution, and to preserve the aesthetic value of the area.
Unfortunately, the law does not distinguish between landfills and sanitary landfills. As a result, many of the present sites designated as sanitary landfills are really landfills. Because of their unfavorable location, many of these landfills will cause water pollution problems, especially groundwater contamination.
It might be worthwhile for Rep. Raul del Mar to legislate an enabling law creating the Metro Cebu Solid Waste Authority as the proper recovery, treatment or disposal of garbage is beyond the financial resources of the cities and towns within Metro Cebu.
A number of analysts have proposed that a fundamental goal of the solid waste authority management program should be to waste fewer resources by a combination of reduced resource use per product (e.g. smaller cars and thinner walled containers), reduced resource use per person (e.g. fewer cars per family), increased product lifetime (e.g. longer lasting cars, tires and appliances), increased resource re-use by substituting packaging that can be re-used in its original form (e.g. glass bottles, which can be refilled) for throw-away items (e.g. aluminum beverage cans).
Finally, the authority should be empowered to close open dumpsites and order that these be upgraded to sanitary landfills. It should also have the power to order improvements in waste collection.
