Landfill just a transfer station - SWMB

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City’s Solid Waste Management Board denied that the Inayawan Landfill is still being used as a dumpsite.

SWMB Presiding Officer Janeses Ponce said that the Inayawan Landfill appears to be continuously receiving garbage because of the traffic of garbage trucks inside the landfill, which is being used as a transfer station.

The Cebu City Council called the landfill management in an executive session to shed light on the real condition and situation at the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill after a newspaper opinion column and a news article stated that the landfill is still being used as a dumpsite despite the cessation order of Mayor Michael Rama to cease all dumping at the landfill effective December 2011.

As a transfer station, garbage from south district barangays are brought and unloaded at the landfill to be transferred to bigger trucks that will bring the garbage to a private landfill in Consolacion.

The city was compelled to establish a transfer station because some of the barangay garbage trucks are already old and the cannot endure the 15-kilometer travel to the Consolacion landfill.

In a separate report, however, landfill manager Randy Navarro was quoted as saying that the dumpsite still receives 60 percent of the city’s wastes because not all can be diverted to the Consolacion landfill due to lack of heavy equipment.

Navarro said that the available garbage trucks can only bring 40 percent of the wastes to the landfill.

He said the supplier of the garbage trucks is at fault because it cannot provide the required number of equipment needed daily.

“This inconsistency in the public statement of two officials from the Executive branch is appalling and is indicative that there could be more than what meets the eye in the activity inside the landfill,” Councilor Nida Cabrebra said in a resolution.

Cabrera said there is a need for the landfill management to inform the council what has happened to the landfill since the effectivity of the cessation order.

She said that the current problem at the landfill is precisely why she is pushing for the establishments of Material Recovery Facilities in the barangays so they can sort, compost, recycle and re-use then dump to the landfill only the residuals.

Just recently though, Navarro said that the volume of garbage being brought to the transfer station has reduced drastically because they compelled more barangays to deliver their garbage directly to Consolacion to solve the problem.  (FREEMAN)