Osmeña pushes plan to solve garbage woes

CEBU, Philippines — Cebu City Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña has stepped in to help Mayor Nestor Archival address the city’s worsening garbage crisis, outlining a plan aimed at cutting costs and restoring efficiency to a system that has long burdened residents and strained public funds.

His intervention comes as the Archival administration grapples with mounting complaints over uncollected trash in several barangays—initially triggered by the Binaliw trash slide and compounded by rising costs of hauling waste to distant disposal sites, including as far as Aloguinsan.

The city’s reliance on far-flung facilities has driven expenses higher and stretched resources thin. However, Cebu City’s garbage problem has been years in the making.

The Commission on Audit earlier reported that garbage-related expenses ballooned to more than ?400 million in 2024, citing inefficiencies and non-compliance with mandated materials recovery facilities.

At a press conference last Friday, Osmeña said the issue should be approached in two parts-- collection and disposal.

“The way to look at the garbage is try to divide it into two parts—one is how to collect the garbage, that’s one separate issue, and the other issue is what to do with the garbage that’s already collected. It’s easier to solve a problem if you can break it into parts,” he said.

On collection, Osmeña is considering the privatization of garbage truck operations, citing the efficiency of the Ceres bus company as a model.

“Ceres know how to run their buses. So get somebody who knows how to run instead of somebody who just says ‘yeah we will try to put it up.’ I like the way Ceres runs—the trucks are clean, they make their own trucks, they know their business,” Osmeña said.

On disposal, he is proposing localized waste-to-energy or waste-to-resource facilities at the South Road Properties and the North Reclamation Area. These facilities, he said, could incinerate waste and reduce its volume to as little as five percent.

“When you burn something completely it’s ashes—there’s no smell, no bacteria. I mean it’s burned so it’s an easier problem,” he explained.

Osmeña noted that previous proposals from private operators involved tipping fees of ?1,000 per ton or more.

With Cebu City generating around 600 tons of garbage daily, this would translate to about ?600,000 per day—an expense he described as “atrociously expensive.”

“So if our garbage is 600 tons a day and many of them are asking 1,000 pesos for tipping fee, that’s 600,000 pesos a day… times 10 days, times 100 days, 365 days—that’s a lot,” he said.

Instead, he is proposing that the city acquire and operate its own equipment, which he estimates could bring costs down to around ?300 per ton while eliminating the need to transport waste outside Cebu City.

“I’m really, really trying to help Nestor. So we are now working with the proposal. It will take me maybe another two weeks to come up with a basic plan,” Osmeña said. (CEBU NEWS)