BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan warned residents in the city’s 128 barangays that their garbage will not be collected by the city’s garbage trucks in the identified pick up points once it is not segregated.
The local chief executive appealed to the residents to cooperate with the no segregation , no collection policy because it is the mandate of the law for the people to segregate their garbage at source before dumping it in the identified pick up points.
“We are doing our best to make the temporary solutions to our garbage problem work while we are venturing on lasting solutions to address the prevailing solid waste issues and concerns in our city,” Domogan stressed.
He admitted that there are some delays in the collection of the city’s generated garbage in the identified pick up points because of some problems being encountered by the trucks that are assigned to collect the garbage during the scheduled pick up time that is why residents must understand the situation by trying to confine their garbage in their compound and bring it out only during the scheduled pick up days.
The city produces some 402 tons of mixed waste daily wherein 160 to 165 tons are classified to be residual waste while the rest are other biodegradable or non-biodegradable.
While the court ordered the closure of the staging area of the city’s haler in Lamtang, Puguis, La Trinidad because of a series of petitions from concerned residents living around the area, Domogan explained that he asked permission from the regional officials of the agriculture department to use a portion of the Baguio Dairy Farm as the city’s temporary staging area following stringent rules and regulations.
The formal letter of Mayor Domogan to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol regarding the matter was favorably endorsed by the regional officials of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and now awaiting the official action of higher authorities.
He disclosed the local government is awaiting the permit to be issued by the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) that will outline the stringent rules that will be observed by the local government in the use of the government property as a temporary staging area for the city’s residual waste being hauled out of the city by the hauler.
Under the prevailing policies, the transfer of waste should be done through the no touch ground policy wherein the city’s garbage truck will directly transfer to the hauler’s truck the collected waste for compaction among others before being transported to the sanitary landfill in the lowlands.
If there will be garbage that will be left in the temporary staging area, he emphasized that the remaining garbage should not be allowed to stay in the area for over 24 hours aside from the provision of additional interventions that will lessen the odor emanating from the garbage being hauled from the staging area to the landfill in the lowlands.
Domogan urged the full cooperation of barangay officials in the strict implementation of the no segregation of garbage at source to guarantee the compliance of the residence to the said policy considering that there are still a good number of households who refuse to segregate their garbage before bringing the same to the identified pick up points in their barangays.
By Dexter A. See
