"We’re coordinating with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) in the search for a landfill site," said Naciancieno.
He said Mayor Feliciano ‘Sonny" Belmonte Jr. wants to phase out the Payatas dumpsite in the next two years, adding that the City Engineer’s Office is now laying down the groundwork for its conversion into a "controlled" dumpsite.
Belmonte earlier launched a solid waste management program built on the active participation of residents in "localized" recycling and composting centers. His ‘six-o-clock habit’ encourages residents to clean their yards of garbage at six in the morning and six in the evening.
He said the city’s 142 barangays will each put up a recycling and composting center to cut down on the amount of garbage collected by the city for dumping elsewhere.
Quezon City Hall officials expect to save this year some P200 million from a more efficient use of resources.
Belmonte has reduced the number of trucks hired to collect the city’s garbage from about 430 units to a little more than 230 units. "We cut down the number of trucks but did even more with less," said Belmonte at the launching of the city’s solid waste management program last week.
Nacianceno said the City Engineer’s Office will build a fence around the Payatas dumpsite to keep out scavengers. A leachate treatment pond will also be put up.
Belmonte said the city government would set aside at least P50 million to rehabilitate the site, where more than 200 people died last year when heavy rains loosened a shoulder of the 100-foot tall mountain of garbage, sending tons of it falling on an urban poor community below. – Romel Bagares