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Monday, July 15, 2002
Recycling is good?
By Lino Santos
IT HAS been quite sometime since the city government operated its waste recycling plant at the Sta. Cruz Market. Initially, residents in the vicinity denounced the foul odor coming from the waste recycling plant. Decaying matter always emit foul odor and it was funny to hear some officials say that the recycling and fertilizer plant does not smell. If the plant does not smell, what is being emitted there? Musk or matadoyong?
Here we do not know how much we will sell the fertilizer produced from the wastes of this beautiful city of ours.
Anyway, the following portion of this writeup is a reprint of an article about recycling in Manila written by By Joann Santiago. The story follows:
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Recycling of waste is becoming a bane in Metro Manila because its foul odor is affecting the health of people living near the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Pasig City.
Chairman Bayani Fernando of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is thinking of discarding the recycling process since it has not served its purpose as a compost fertilizer.
Pasig City Mayor Soledad Eusebio has ordered the contractor of MRF to take immediate action on the foul odor emitted from the site.
The homeowners association around the MRF complained that the odorous smell is taking a heavy toll on their health.
Eusebio has given the contractor two weeks to take the necessary action or face closure.
Fernando noted the problem is caused by the large volume of uncollected compost at the Pasig MRF.
"The odor coming from the area is bad because the MRF has generated so much compost but there are no takers. Nobody wants to haul out those compost and use it," Fernando said.
"The difficulty of the recycling and composting operation is that there are no real market for it in the vicinity of Metro Manila," he said.
The MMDA chief said "recycling is not a good idea because you are actually just keeping more trash by reusing those that should be thrown away."
With the on-set of the rainy season, garbage problem would be compounded.
The unabated rain for the past three days in Metro Manila has resulted in the accumulation of garbage in the canals, esteros, creeks and the Pasig River.
Fernando said it has become "a losing proposition" because of the lack of takers in the business of composting.
Another problem is the lack of vehicles to haul the huge pile of compost to the dumpsite, Fernando said.
"Again it is a question of transport cost that may off-set whatever benefit they get out of this composting," he pointed out.
Besides, the recycled wastes are not all converted into fertilizers as planned but only a soil conditioner to make the soil soft, Fernando said.
While it helps the soil easy to till, it holds more water and that means big volume of water is needed, he said.
Fernando also said that disposal of garbage is not the sole responsibility of MMDA but all the local government units (LGUs) as well.
"Actually, many of our LGUs have their own dumpsites. And if they don't have, they can make use of the Montalban dumpsite. And now we have a new one in Navotas," he said.
MMDA has also two other MRF one in Las Pinas City and and another Smokey Mountain in Manila. That makes a total of three, Fernando added.
"Each MRF can take in as much as 500 to 750 tons of garbage per day," Fernando said.
He said MMDA is giving out the compost for free to be used to agricultural lands but the response is lukewarm because of the transport problem.
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In this city, we cannot decide whether we give out the fertilizer for free or we sell it so we will have money for junkets of officials who like to travel out of town. |
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