Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria has announced that the city government is verifying an unsolicited proposal for the collection and export of plastics to Israel as an option to address the city’s garbage disposal problem.
The mayor said he does not believe in the mandatory sanitary landfills for local government units, describing it as a “thing of the past”.
Sagarbarria made the disclosure during a forum Monday sponsored by the Philippine Information Agency in observance of this year’s Earth Day.
He was responding to the challenges raised earlier during the forum in a waste management presentation by Mark Espedilla of Foundation University, who talked about the city’s garbage disposal and problems arising from it.
According to Espedilla, the city generates at least 60 tons of trash a day, with an estimated 22,000 tons of garbage a year. Of the total volume of trash in the city, 80 percent is generated from households, he added.
Espedilla had made recommendations to declog the current city dump site in Barangay Candauay, such as implementation of waste segregation measures, as well as hurling challenges to the city government.
A sanitary landfill is required by law, Mayor Sagarbarria shunned the idea, saying it is no longer applicable in Dumaguete and would not be the appropriate response to counter the city’s increasing volume of trash.
In fact, the proposed clustered sanitary landfill in Dauin for local government units comprising the Metro Dumaguete had not panned out. To date, the city continues with its open-pit dump site.
Mayor Sagarbarria pointed out that plastic and not organic matter is the city’s biggest problem as regards waste disposal.
The city is finding other means to dispose of or utilize its trash, he said.
An example is the city government’s utilization of organic trash from the dumps that are transformed into fertilizers to increase the productivity of farmers. The farmers get organic trash that can be used for fertilizer for free, he added.
On the other hand, waste matter, specifically plastics, are being collected for other purposes, such as recycling, and more importantly, for possible export to Israel.
Sagarbarria, however, admitted that the proposal from a company that he did not name is to yet be verified and studied. (PNA)