ITOGON, Benguet – The municipal government will continue to haul out the generated residual waste to the nearest engineered sanitary landfill while efforts are being done to locate a suitable property for a dumpsite exclusively for the municipality.
Mayor Bernard S. Waclin reported that the hauling of the town’s residual waste is being done once a month to maximise the volume of garbage being hauled out and save on cost for the municipal government.
He pointed out that the local government is aggressively looking for a potential site for a controlled dump facility or landfill within the locality to save the cost of hauling for the municipality.
The municipal chief executive claimed that there has been no such site located to host the town’s-controlled dump facility or landfill thus the hauling of the town’s residual waste is still one of the most feasible option to prevent the garbage from piling up in the different barangays.
According to him, the volume of solid waste being generated by the households is increasing with the increased in-migration which warrants a review of the current solid waste management strategies and enhance these to prevent garbage from piling up.
Mayor Waclin explained that the municipal solid waste management board continues to review and assess the programs, projects and activities being implemented by the municipal government to keep these updated to address issues and concerns that may arise with the significant increase in the volume of garbage from households.
The mayor encouraged the residents to continue segregating their garbage at source to reduce those to be hauled out to the residual waste only.
He admitted that the current problem being encountered by the municipal government is the opposition to available areas for conversion into a controlled dump facility or landfill, complicating the search for potential areas for conversion.
Itogon is one of the municipalities in Benguet that have opted to haul its residual waste outside the municipality following the difficulty of looking for suitable and feasible areas that could be converted to controlled dump facilities or landfill.
Waclin stipulated that the municipal government wants to save on cost in the hauling of residual waste to put more resources in enhancing the delivery of basic services and increase the number of development projects especially in remote villages.
