Bidding firm offers to bring trash to Antique

One of the bidders vying for a new landfill has come up as the most likely firm to save Metro Manila from a garbage crisis.

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chairman Jejomar Binay reported that Celdex Corp. was the latest firm to present an offer to the government for the development and use of a temporary garbage disposal site.

Celdex was one of the losing bidders in the government bidding for a new sanitary landfill site to service Metro Manila from 2001 onwards.
According to Binay, the proposal of Celdex involves barging the garbage of Metro Manila to the firm’s disposal site in Semirara, Antique.

Based on the plan of Celdex, two transfer stations would be set up in the cities of Marikina and Manila where the garbage would be loaded onto barges.

A third transfer station is being mulled by the MMDA somewhere along the Pasig River to help facilitate the shipping of the garbage.

Celdex already has an existing mining pit available for dumping garbage in Antique which was their proposal during the bidding a few months ago.

A number of firms have also submitted proposals to the government for the temporary dumpsite including the virtual winner Pro-Environment Consortium.

However, the committee claimed that the firm’s cost for the temporary site turned out to be more expensive than what they offered for the actual operation of the complete sanitary landfill.

Binay said the proposal of Celdex looks very attractive and is being taken seriously by the government in its ongoing deliberations for the emergency dumpsites.

Flagship Programs and Projects Secretary Robert Aventajado along with Binay has finally admitted that there is a huge garbage problem in Metro Manila.

Binay, in particular, was adamant in his stand that there was and will be no garbage crisis in Metro Manila during the early stages of the bidding process.

However with a restraining order coming from the Court of Appeals, the government has been left helpless to award the contract to the winning bidder.

The results of the bidding was supposed to be known before the end of the year in time for the closure of the San Mateo landfill.– Marvin Sy