Bike rally staged to protest new landfill in Rizal

Hundreds of environmentalists and cycling advocates banded together yesterday to form a mammoth “bike rally” and air their condemnation of a move to set up a new landfill in an “environmentally-critical” area in San Mateo, Rizal province.

More than 500 cyclists from cycling advocacy groups and environmental non-government organizations joined the “Padyakan Laban sa Tambakan” organized by the Coalition for a Garbage-Free San Mateo, to call attention against a quiet move to establish a 19-hectare landfill in Barangay Guinayang in San Mateo, which is within the Marikina Watershed Reservation.

Jing Husin, spokesperson for the coalition, said the plan was just the beginning of a grand design to lay out a 200-hectare landfill in San Mateo.

“The 19-hectare initial phase of the new dumpsite built in Guinayang is located within the Marikina Watershed Reservation. According to the proposal, it is expandable to 200 hectares, which virtually removes half of the 473-hectare forest cover in Barangays Guinayang and Maly,” Husin revealed.

The various groups that joined the event included the Ecological Waste Coalition, Greenpeace, Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Akbayan, Bike Roadie Group, the UP Mountaineers, the Firefly Brigade and other NGOs.

The coalition claims that the San Mateo Sanitary Landfill & Development Corporation (SMSLDC), formed on Sept. 11, 2007 and reportedly owned by contractor Abelardo L. Salazar, is currently building the garbage dump within the boundary of the two barangays.

According to the coalition, SMSLDC had anomalously secured an environmental compliance certificate (ECC) for the dumpsite using clearances and approvals from local government units to establish a dumpsite in a different area in Barangay Pintong Bukawe, which itself had been blocked by the Supreme Court on Dec. 13, 2005.

“The San Mateo landfill project should be immediately stopped. Not only does it endanger the health of the locals, it will definitely pollute and destroy the watershed in Rizal,” said Clemente Bautista Jr., national coordinator of the Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment.

“This ride-for-a-cause is our collective action to protect the San Mateo people and their environment. It is our protest action against the illegal, anti-environment and anti-people San Mateo landfill project,” Bautista added.

The Marikina Watershed is adjacent to major tributaries such as the Marikina River, the Abuab River, Boso-Boso River, Wawa River, and the Laguna Lake.

With a landfill located within the reservation, it was pointed out that leachate emanating from any such garbage dump pose grave health hazards to Rizal and Metro Manila residents that rely heavily on water from the watershed.

Leachate is the liquid that drains or “leaches” from a landfill. It varies widely in composition regarding the age of the landfill and the type of waste that it contains. It can usually contain both dissolved and suspended material.

The coalition warned that tons of garbage in the dumpsite will allow breeding microorganisms to easily multiply and will invite disease-carrying vectors including rodents, mosquitoes, and flies resulting in illnesses such as dysentery, typhoid, hepatatis A, cholera and gastro-enteritis.

The biker-rallyists started their protest with a program at the Aranzanzu Church before riding around San Mateo.