BAGUIO CITY – The city solid waste management board (CSWMB) envisions the 6-cycle integrated solid waste disposal facility to be established in barangay Sto. Tomas Apugan will be the ultimate solution to the city’s solid waste disposal problem and will help the city government realize substantial savings from its over P100 million annual expenses in the hauling of garbage to the engineered sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac.
Romeo D. Concio, city general services officer, said the operation of the city’s integrated solid waste disposal facility within a 50-hectare land area in barangay Sto. Tomas School Area will be anchored on a centralized machine-operated Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), which will be dog tailed with a waste-to-energy facility, an engineered sanitary landfill, the available Environmental Recycling (ERS) machines, an anaerobic digester and a medical waste facility.
“The concept of an integrated solid waste disposal facility is to be able to utilize the city’s generated waste into renewable energy which cou8ld be used to energize surrounding communities or sold to interested power retailers that will translate to more income for the city government,” Concio stressed.
He explained the proposed waste-to-energy facility will be able to convert some 200 tons of garbage to a maximum of 12 megawatts of power which will be more than enough to cater to the power requirements of neighboring communities.
According to him, the CSWMB is inclined to introduce amendments to the existing 10-year solid waste management plan before the submission of the comprehensive study on the integrated solid waste management disposal facility for immediate approval and subsequent implementation.
Concio said the 50-hectare area within the 139-hectare city property in Sto. Tomas School Area where the integrated solid waste disposal facility will be established was already identified and ready to be fenced off to prevent possible encroachments to be made by informal settlers.
Earlier, the city government allocated an initial amount of P80 million in this year’s P1.5 billion city budget to bankroll the initial implementation of the integrated solid waste disposal facility in the said barangay in order to significantly solve the city’s garbage woes that it continues to suffer over eight years now.
Concio revealed all the components of the 6-cycle integrated solid waste disposal facility will be subjected to public bidding to allow interested companies to participate in offering the local government proven technologies to solve the garbage problem.
The city general services officer underscored the importance of coming out with the appropriate solution to the city’s solid waste disposal problem so that more funds could be saved which will in turn be used to fund the implementation of priority development projects and enhance the delivery of basic services that will be beneficial to the welfare of the majority of the people.
He assured all available technologies being presented to the city government to possibly solve the city’s solid waste disposal problem will pass through stringent scrutiny by the city solid waste management board that includes technical experts from concerned local government offices and even the city council.
