Cebu City barangays told to activate MRF

CEBU, Philippines - All 80 barangays of Cebu City are ordered to activate their material recovery facilities as the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill will be totally closed on January 15.

Mayor Michael Rama said this is in preparation of his administration's long term goal to "close down, rehabilitate, remediate and convert the area constituting the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill into a production, healthy, habitable and sustainable zone for economic development."

The material recovery facilities' operations will ensure that the residual wastes from the barangays are delivered to the private landfill in Consolacion and other landfill authorized by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Also, the barangay officials are ordered to strictly implement the segregation of solid wastes- the no segregation, no collection policy of the city; and strict enforcement of the anti-littering.

The city police office, barangay tanods, Barangay Environmental Officers, City Environment and Natural Resources Office, Department of Public Services, and City Environmental Sanitation and Enforcement Team will be the overseers of this order.

This week, Land Management Council head lawyer Jade Ponce said they will conduct a test-run on the viability of the "truck-to-truck" scheme, wherein the city will directly collect garbage using big haulers truck from the barangays to be disposed to private landfills.

Ponce said the scheme would aid the concern of the barangays in the south district on waste transportation. He said the city will be providing five 10-wheeler trucks to collect wastes in the south district.

He said south district barangays are dumping at the landfill at least 20 tons of residual wastes daily.

"They will no longer transport the garbage to Consolacion, the city will do it instead. Ang barangay's task is to segregate the wastes from the source before we collect it truck-to-truck. But, we would see if we could manage the transfer," he said.

"This has to be done because we're going to close it down, no more delivery of garbage or residual wastes. Closing is just a step since we will rehabilitate it, mine it out preparing for conversion into a viable sustainable economic development either mix housing mix commercial use," he said.

The 15-hectare Inayawan Landfill facility has been in operation for the past 15 years. It has already reached its maximum capacity and now poses hazard to public health and the environment.

A recent study by the University of San Carlos entitled "Fate and transport of chromium, lead and mercury in the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill" highlighted the risk caused by dangerous metals.

The study revealed the alarming levels of toxic substances at the landfill likely generated from mercury-contained household solid waste products.—  (FREEMAN)