Cebu City waste management road map

For as long as Cebu City and other LGUs will continue the paradigm and the linear consume-throw-dispose road, the past and present problems of increasing waste volume, costly collection and disposal, not to mention the health and environmental hazards posed by unsegregated waste, will persist.

On May 6, 2026, Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival issued an executive order that declared a state of solid waste management emergency, triggered by continuing waste volume, its attendant health/environmental risks, and, soaring daily garbage disposal costs due to lack of a proximate disposal site.

The January 8, 2026 disaster closed nearby Binaliw as Cebu City’s waste disposal site. The alternative site, Aloguinsan, requires Cebu City to pay a hauling fee of ?3,906 per ton and to spend about ?3 million for the city’s daily 700 tons!

Cebu City now faces the logistical crisis of straining its annual waste budget beyond its past ?600 million annual allocation!

Mayor Nestor’s May 6th executive order already clearly specifies Cebu City’s solid waste management roadmap.

If it is strictly implemented/complied with, Cebu City will finally take this long-awaited, yet to be travelled and much-needed circular waste management road.

The EO mandates reduction, diversion, regulation of waste for the city, starting with waste segregation at source.

Like Republic Act No. 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, IF practiced and complied with, the EO requires barangays, institutions (schools, offices, others), residences, private establishments, businesses/industries and other waste generators to segregate their waste, minimize waste, especially biodegradable and plastic wastes, through recycling, reusing and the other R’s, and only residual wastes to be collected for disposal.

Again, IF seriously implemented and complied with throughout the city, daily disposal costs will significantly be lower, health/environmental costs and risks reduced, and more stakeholders, more participants and partners, not just government, united in resolving the waste problem, crisis, and emergency!

At the start of Cebu City’s taking this new circular waste management road, was there any baseline data made not only about the total waste volume of the city, but about the volume of waste, by types for the various waste generators throughout the city?

If the city wants to reduce the daily 700 tons collected, does the city know where this daily waste volume comes from?

If the city wants to have only residual wastes collected and disposed (to reduce the huge daily waste disposal budget), does the city have data of volume of segregated waste, by waste types, for barangays and other sources/generators of waste?

Mayor Nestor’s road map, already present in his May executive order and even showcased in the city’s ecostation at the South Road Properties, can be strengthened and supported by waste-related data mentioned above.

Without reliable waste-related data (baseline/past/recent), the end of the road, the solution of the waste crisis/emergency cannot be complete and achieved.

Rapid data collection and research about waste and waste characterization SHOULD be done/commissioned immediately. The research output will be able to clearly show how much, what type of wastes are generated by whom, by which generators, and where.

Such result can identify the multiple stakeholders the city government can tap as partners for united, comprehensive waste reduction, segregation, diversion (through recycling and other R’s).

Aside from the urgent waste data collection and research, cannot the city government immediately explore hiring daily waste segregators per sitio/other locations to reduce waste volume per source, to ensure waste segregation so that only residuals will end up in disposal sites (hence, reduced volume/costs for hauling)?

Instead of hiring waste segregators at SRP Ecostation, why not hire daily waste segregators in situ, inside barangays and communities, so no wastes, except residual are collected, transported to disposal sites?

Doing so will generate employment/income, reduce poverty/hunger, allow for healthier, sustainable constituents and communities and a better/win-win, pro-people/pro-planet sustainable waste management solution/model!