ATOK, Benguet – The municipal government is compelled to haul out the generated residual waste from the households to ensure its continuous compliance with the pertinent provisions of Republic Act (RA) 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 and prevent the piling up of garbage in the town’s barangay and the established ecopark.
Mayor Franklin Smith claimed that the municipal government already abandoned the use of the ecopark as the town’s residual containment area, thus, it is now hauling out the generated residual waste to the sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac to prevent the piling up of the garbage in the different barangays.
He said that the residual waste in the barangays are brought to the town’s garbage truck until it is filled up in time for transport to the Capas sanitary landfill.
The municipal chief executive urged households and businesses to practice the segregation of waste at source to contribute in the efforts to significantly reduce the volume of waste being hauled out of the municipality and to empower people to adhere to the efforts in recycling and reusing solid waste, whichever is practicable in their case.
Further, the mayor also called on farmers and vegetable dealers not to unscrupulously dump their vegetable trimmings in the various ravines along the roads in the locality to avoid unsightly areas that will affect the implementation of clean and green programs and projects in the different parts of the municipality.
Earlier, the municipal government suspended the use of its ecopark as its temporary residual containment area and temporarily suspended the collection of garbage in the municipality to pave the way for the implementation of the necessary measures to sustain the efforts in the preservation and protection of the town’s environment.
Mayor Smith disclosed that the municipal government owns the truck being used to haul out the town’s residual waste that is why the hauling cost remains to be minimal considering the small volume of waste being generated from the different barangays.
He admitted that it is only the business centers in the municipality, such as Sayangan and Saddle, that produce bigger volumes of waste that is why it takes some time to fill up the truck being used to haul out the residual waste and the frequency of its travel is often once a week.
The mayor explained that residents could use the biodegradable waste for the production of their own organic fertilizers while non-biodegradable ones could be re-used so that only the residual waste will be the ones that will be hauled out of the locality for the meantime that the local government is ascertaining what programs to implement to establish a permanent solution to the absence of a landfill.
Atok is one of the towns in northern Benguet that host significant portions of the Halsema highway that starts from La Trinidad, Benguet up to Banaue, Ifugao. It is also one of the major vegetable producing towns of Benguet and serves as among the favorite destinations of nature lovers visiting pristine tourist spots in various barangays.
