GARBAGE collectors in Mandaue City may soon do their daily rounds at night.
Mayor Jonas Cortes said garbage collection would be more efficient if done at night, citing the heat during daytime as a factor that makes garbage collectors less productive.
Since traffic is light at night, garbage trucks can also go around the city faster, Cortes said in a recent speech.
In recent months, the City has been implementing new programs to better manage waste. The City collects an average of 460 tons a day.
In a bid to reduce waste, the City plans to put up exchange centers where one can get grocery goods in exchange for trash that can be recycled.
On collecting garbage at night, Cortes said he is finalizing the plan with the Department of General Services and the Solid Waste Management Office.
More garbage can be collected at night because most people are at home and can attend to their household wastes when the collectors arrive, Cortes said.
Clean streets
“If we collect garbage at night, our streets will already be clean by the time we go out the next day,” he said.
Cortes also said that lampposts have already been put up in the sanitary landfill in Barangay Umapad to garbage collectors can work at night.
The City closed the Umapad dump site a few years back to comply with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000. It reopened the facility last year as a sanitary landfill.
Cortes lamented that indiscriminate throwing of trash contributes a lot to flooding.
By putting up exchange centers, he said households will have more reason to segregate their wastes.
Budget
The City has chosen Barangay Subangdaku as a pilot area for the project, for which an initial budget of P500,000 has been allocated.
Engr. Ricardo Mendoza, acting head of the City Environment and Natural Resources, said their target is to put up exchange centers in major sitios in 27 barangays within the year.