Talisay rejects Cebu City's garbage

CEBU, Philippines - While Naga City has welcomed the proposal of Cebu City to use its material recovery facility, Talisay City has rejected it.

The city's Ecological Solid Waste Management Board (ESWMB) had even approved a proposed resolution requesting the city council "not to accept" Cebu City's request "as of the moment" to use Talisay's sanitary landfill in barangay Tapul for the reason that it is "not yet fully developed" and that "the waste to energy project is not yet implemented."

The council, for its part, during its regular session yesterday morning, granted the board's request by agreeing to reject Cebu City's request.

"To date, it is not yet acceptable to allow garbage from Cebu City to dump in our sanitary landfill as it is not yet fully developed," read a portion of the council resolution filed by Councilor Bernard Odilao.

Odilao, who is chairman on council committee on Environment, said that if the city welcomed tons of garbage the landfill may "overflow" with garbage "in no time" and would create a "big problem" for the city later on.

Following the Department of Environment and Natural Resource's ban on all open dumpsites, the city government of Talisay in December 2005 started using its 96,201 square-meter landfill in the mountain barangay of Tapul.

Odilao said that even up to this time, the facility is still undergoing expansion to meet the city's growing waste products.

Odilao said the ESWMB's resolution was issued shortly after barangay chiefs from Cebu City came to Mayor Socrates Fernandez to ask if they could use the city's dumping site.

Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama last week closed the Inayawan sanitary landfill to push the barangay chiefs to implement the city's solid waste management program.

The city has an existing ordinance which requires all barangays to segregate their waste but has not been implemented since it was approved in 2005.

Since the closure of the landfill, all barangays have been doing their own segregation of waste, although reports have it that it takes a lot of work which results to uncollected garbage.

This is reportedly why barangay captains had sought Fernandez' help.

Rama, for his part, had also expressed his intention to Naga City Mayor Valdemar Chiong, in their meeting last week, to use its material recovery facility.

And although Chiong is amenable to the idea, Cebu City has to wait for a while as certain facilities have to be constructed first before Naga's privately-owned MRF has to welcome another bulk of garbage from the outside. — (FREEMAN)