SOLID waste management has remained a big challenge for local government officials even after Republic Act (RA) 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, was enacted on Jan. 26, 2001. Almost 18 years have passed but some establishments still surreptitiously dispose garbage to rivers or the sea.
RA 9003 bans the use of open dumpsites and only allows the operation of sanitary landfills. But after the closure of the dumpsites in Cebu City and Mandaue City, the two local government units have yet to establish their own sanitary landfill.
Mandaue City Mayor Luigi Quisumbing, after assuming office two years ago, thought that traffic was the city’s worst problem, but it’s not. It’s the city’s garbage. Cebu City is also experiencing the problem of waste disposal every day after it closed the dumpsite in Inayawan.
Instead of the said local government units having their own sanitary landfill as required by RA 9003, they are either using the sanitary landfills of private companies or using other methods of disposing the garbage. One private landfill is in the mountains of Consolacion town and Cebu City threw its waste there. But the contract the City entered into was allegedly laden with graft.
On Jan. 5, Cessna Zosa-Sarmiento posted on her FB account pictures of hospital waste like syringes, rubber gloves, chemical bottles, etc. floating off the coast of Barangay Ibo, Lapu-Lapu City. The photos so caught attention on social media the concerned hospital had to issue a statement.
In reaction, Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) 7 Director William Cuñado ordered on Monday an investigation on the matter to determine if Chong Hua Hospital and another private hospital in Mandaue City could be held accountable for disposing their wastes into the sea.
I won’t preempt the EMB’s investigation, but what is certain is that the said hospitals have a lot of explaining to do to the EMB.
The disposal of hospital waste on the waters of Barangay Ibo only shows that after 18 years, the enforcement of RA 9003 is still to be desired. It was enacted on Dec. 20, 2000 and was signed into law by the President on Jan. 26, 2001. But even without the measure, residents and managers of establishments are duty-bound to dispose of their garbage properly.
The World Bank, in its study in 2012, estimated that solid waste produced in cities will go up by 165 percent or 77,776 tons per day from 29,315 tons as a consequence of a projected 47.3-percent hike in urban population by 2025 and a projected doubling of municipal solid waste generation per capita at 0.9 kilogram per day by 2025 from the current 0.5 kilogram. This presents a direct correlation between the per capita level of income in cities and the amount of waste per capita that is generated.
Because of the lack of sufficient facility to collect garbage and a sanitary landfill, the uncollected wastes in areas unserved or under-served would end up in rivers, esteros and other water bodies and pollute the water and clog the drainage systems resulting to flooding during heavy rains.
With the upcoming elections, would the candidates take up the sanitary landfill issue and the implementation of RA 9003 as vehicle for their candidacy?