BAGUIO CITY – The local government is gaining headway in its efforts to permanently solve the city’s solid waste disposal problem as the Benguet Corporation (BC) reportedly issued a deed of usufruct for the use of a 12-hectare portion of its Antamok open pit site for the planned integrated solid waste disposal facility.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan said that the deed of usufruct is being reviewed by the City Legal Office to ensure that the proposed terms and conditions therein will be of greater advantage to the local government in effectively and efficiently addressing the city’s solid waste disposal problem that is eating up a huge portion of the city’s annual budget.
“We continue aggressively search for the most appropriate solution to our garbage disposal problem through a more efficient and effective solid waste disposal system using the latest environmentally-friendly technology,” Domogan stressed.
The local chief executive underscored that while the city is still working on a permanent solution to the garbage disposal issues, hauling out the city’s residual waste to an engineered sanitary landfill outside the city is still the most feasible solution to prevent garbage crisis.
Starting next year, the mayor said the local government will use the the Urdaneta sanitary landfill instead of the Metro Clark Waste Management Corporation as it charges P550 per ton of garbage compared to the P650 per ton charged by the latter.
Under the planned integrated solid waste disposal facility, the local government, together with a private partner providing the latest environmentally-friendly technology, will be putting up a waste-to-energy plant, an engineered sanitary landfill, a centralized materials recovery facility, two Environmental Recycling System (ERS) machines, an anaerobic digester, a health and medical waste treatment plant and a special waste treatment plant.
Domogan further informed that although BC has offered for the use a portion of its Antamok open-pit site for the city’s an integrated solid waste disposal facility, the option to use a portion of the city-owned 139-hectare property in Sto. Tomas for thee said purpose remains open in case negotiations for the use of BC’s property will not materialize.
Aside from working on the permanent solution to the city’s garbage disposal problem, he also announced that the local government will purchase additional garbage trucks next year to strengthen the collection of garbage from the city’s 128 barangays.
The local government is spending at least 80 to P90 million annually to haul the city’s residual waste to the sanitary landfills in the lowlands.
For next year, the proposed budget earmarked by the local government for the continuous hauling of the city’s residual waste to the Urdaneta sanitary landfill is approximately P95 million which is higher than this year’s allocation for the same purpose which is P85 million.
From the previous P3,400 per ton of garbage being spent by the local government for the hauling of its residual waste to the landfill in the lowlands, Domogan was able to work out its drastic reduction to at least P1,500 per ton of residual waste being hauled out of the city from 2010 to the present.
By Dexter A. See
