THE local government of Tuba inked a commitment for the operation of a centralized transfer station located at Barangay Taloy Sur starting April 15, 2019.
This following a conference held last February 13 at the Environment and Management Bureau Cordillera (EMB-CAR) office with Tuba Mayor Ignacio Rivera and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Office.
Rivera together with barangay officials and representative from municipal council signed a commitment sheet for the operation of a centralized government-owned transfer station, located at Barangay Taloy Sur.
Tuba utilizes waste transfer facility areas in barangay Badiwan, Camp 6 and Tadiangan before the wastes are being hauled out to an engineered sanitary landfill in Tarlac.
However, the environment bureau found the Benguet town violated Republic Act 9003 known as the Ecological Waste Management Act of 2000.
The mayor committed to implement mitigating measures to strictly operate Tadiangan transfer station as a temporary residual containment area (TRCA) following the guideline stated in National Solid Waste Management Council Resolution No. 79 and to remove all waste at the Badiwan, Camp 6 within two weeks as of February 13 and be allowed to operate as TRCA until the centralized transfer station is ready for operation.
The mayor further committed to strictly record all incoming and outgoing waste in the areas and submit monthly reports to EMB-CAR.
Ricardo Dang-iw, EMB-CAR chief of Solid Waste Management Section added as of their 2018 monitoring, the municipality has recorded an average of 6.2 tons of wastes daily.
He discussed TRCA, composed of sack dried residual waste which needs to be piled properly. In the municipality, they have minimal biodegradable unlike Baguio City and La Trinidad.