Navotas dump open to interested LGUs

In the face of an imminent garbage crisis arising from the closure of open dumps in Metro Manila, Navotas Mayor Toby Tiangco said yesterday the Tanza controlled disposal facility (CDF) can still absorb additional garbage load from other local government units (LGUs).

Except for the Payatas facility in Quezon City and the Tanza CDF in Navotas, all open dumps operating in Metro Manila were officially closed last Feb. 16 as ordered by law — the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.

Tiangco said, however, the Tanza facility can only accept garbage as far as the National Solid Waste Management Board (NSWMB) is willing to allow it.

"We are willing to accept garbage from other interested LGUs, but only according to conditions imposed on us by the NSWMB. We have always been consistent on this. Susunod lang kami," the mayor said.

Tiangco said the Navotas CDF is capable of absorbing a maximum load of some 500,000 tons. It currently holds only 220,000 tons after operating for nearly four years.

The CDF is originally designed to accommodate 2,000 tons of garbage per day, but was limited to operate only during the night and in a reduced capacity on the request of neighboring Obando in Bulacan.

Accepting garbage from other areas in the metropolis for dumping in the Navotas dump, the mayor said, was not really a new idea.

Since the Tanza facility started operating in 2002, the city of Manila entered into an agreement with Navotas for the disposal of part of its daily load and has been a regular client.

Tiangco said the 11-hectare CDF has since been receiving an average of some 900 tons of garbage from the town and the daily regular load of Manila loaded at the transfer station at Pier 18 in Tondo.

Despite a court order and the official seal of approval from the DENR and the NSWMB, including environmentalist groups favoring the operation of the facility, the CDF had to close for some seven months last year after concerned groups from Obando barricaded the Binuangan River — the common natural boundary between the two towns.

This action, which Tiangco said the court has ruled as illegal, effectively barred barges carrying solid waste from entering the Tanza facility.

Normal operations returned only in November last year, he said.