DAVAO City Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) is in need of more garbage compactors to accommodate the growing volume of trash in the city.
Cenro head Marivic Reyes said on Friday, June 7, there are only 95 rented trucks and nine government-owned trucks or the garbage compactors collecting the waste of the city 24 hours a day.
She said the current number of rented trucks is sufficient to meet the demands for garbage collection. However, the city needs more garbage compactors.
The Cenro chief said having garbage compactors will decrease waste to be thrown on landfills as it will crush the collected waste into small and manageable pieces.
Originally, Reyes said Cenro had purchased 23 compactor trucks, but the 14 trucks were retired due to poor condition.
“Usahay pa gani kaning siyam nato ka compactors, usahay unom, naay times eight ra kabuok mag-function, tungod either madaot ang uban, while others kinahanglan mu-undergo og repair (There are times that, out of the nine compactors, only six or eight compactors are functioning because some are malfunctioning, while others need to undergo thorough repair),” she said.
Despite the problem, Reyes said they make sure that all waste in the city will be properly collected, as Cenro conducts shifting in the collection schedule.
The agency again received backlash after tenants of the Metro Mercado vegetable market in Quirino Avenue complained of the uncollected garbage which allegedly had been stuck for almost three weeks, as of this Saturday.
Reyes, earlier, already clarified the matter, saying it is the management’s responsibility to settle the problem.
Meanwhile, she admitted that Cenro has lapses in the collection, especially during rainy seasons.
“Naa jud mi lapses na di jud namo makuha tanang basura hilabi na mag-ulan, kay maglisod og breakdown among compactor (We have lapses in the collection schedule especially during rainy seasons, due to our compactors having a hard time breaking down the collected wastes)”, Reyes said.
She also said lines are longer at the Davao City landfill in New Carmen, Tugbok district during rainy season.
Meanwhile, with the increasing number of population and high-rise infrastructures, Reyes said it is not certain if the generated wastes in the city would double due to the ongoing lobby of ordinance in the City Council for the ban of single-use plastics, which hugely contributes to the exhaustion to the city’s landfill.