‘Tarlac landfill closure poses health risk’

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines — Hospitals in Luzon including in Metro Manila are expected to face a health crisis due to a plan of the government to shut down the lone engineered sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac.

A group of hospital and toxic waste treaters said that once this happens, patients and hospital workers would be exposed to health hazard.

In a media forum on Friday, Danny Abadilla, president of the Clark Sanitation Services, said the planned closure of the  Kalangitan Sanitary Landfill in October would result in the piling up of hospital waste.

“Its closure is a helpless situation. We cannot collect and process medical and hospital wastes if there are no available and fully compliant sanitary landfills where we could dispose of treated wastes,” Abadilla said.

“Most, if not all toxic waste treatment firms will have no recourse but to stop the collection and processing of medical waste,” the group said.

Abadilla said most of the hospital wastes that come from Northern and Central Luzon as well as Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna and Palawan are treated at their recovery facility before these are brought to the Kalangitan Sanitary Landfill, the only waste facility accredited by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The landfill, which is operated by the Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. under a 25-year contract with the state-run Clark Development Corp., is expected to stop operation on Oct. 5.