TASKED to respond to the abnormal increase of waste during huge crowd drawing events in the Summer Capital such as the cancelled Panagbenga Festival, the city’s General Services Office (GSO) have created its Solid Waste Action Team (Swat).
In the weekly Talakayan sa Environment Code radio forum of the Baguio Regreening Movement (BRM), Doming Urbanozo, section head of the Solid Waste Management Division (SWMD) explained Swat will be conducting roving activities to act on the abnormal generated waste in the city.
“We have already organized a quick response team wherein the garbage collectors renamed as solid waste action team. Despite the lack of manpower in our division, we were able to create two teams with four personnel per team which is only activated during grand activities in the city,” Urbanozo said.
A directive was issued by Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong to the SWMD to conduct flashing before and after an activity at the main streets where a parade will pass to ensure the cleanliness of the route.
“On the collection of garbage, before the start of an activity as early as four or five o’clock in the morning, our swat will be present to help in the regular collection of garbage. We have already coordinated with the City Environment and Parks Management Office(CEPMO) who is in charge in the collection of garbage within parks and if in case they would not be able to handle the volume of garbage generated during the said activity, they will just have to inform us for a backup, we also organized a tail ender team that will conduct the cleaning activity after a parade,” Urbanozo stated.
On a regular day, the city still produces plastic waste despite the ban on sando bags.
“The city produces 32% or 138.56 tons per day of what we call as plastic or residual waste which actually decreased since the organization of the anti-plastic task force under CEPMO. The public had an awareness regarding the said ordinance particularly the single use of plastic bags,” Urbanozo added.
Council Committee Chairman on Public Works Mylen Yaranon meanwhile assured amendment on the present plastic ordinance to include other plastic materials or residual waste generated in the city.
“Single use plastic is included in our plastic and Styrofoam free ordinance but we want to make some amendments on this because we need to know what kinds of plastics are being produced as plastics. I think the ordinance does not cover plastic bottles and straws, only sando bags which is why we’re really proposing to amend that to include others and we really want to make it stricter,” Yaranon said.