DENR, ENRO no answers yet to city dumpsite woes

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Negros Oriental and the Environment and Natural Resources Office-Dumaguete had shown their seeming helplessness in finding the right answers to the city’s garbage disposal system, as mandated by law.

Several years ago, the DENR had ordered the closure of all open dumps around the country, under Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, according to city prosecutor Ely Escoreal during a forum Wednesday.

However, until today, the city government apparently failed to comply with the repeated warnings from DENR to close down the dumpsite at the outskirt village of Candauay, and shift to sanitary landfill instead, Escoreal said, noting that, on certain days, foul smell emanates from this site, posing health hazards to nearby residents.

DENR provincial head Charlie Fabre, and City ENRO chief Rey Awayan Sr., during the forum, admitted that the city still continues to face the dilemma on where to relocate the dump from Candauay to a site for sanitary landfill.

Fabre said it has been a persistent problem of the DENR in calling the attention of the LGU on this matter, while Awayan said the enforcement of the law should be gradually carried out to give enough time for the LGU to change its open dump to a sanitary landfill.

The areas near the city’s existing dump are already saturated such that there is no more room for expansion, said Awayan. Over the years, the city government had managed to find ways to control the open dumpsite, but this time the demands can no longer be addressed, he added.

The city government had acquired bulldozers to regularly flatten out the mounds of garbage at Candauay, and bought millions of pesos worth of bio-enzymes to hasten the shrinking of trash and speed up decomposition.

Awayan said the city government also found another solution to address the garbage problem, and this is the establishment of a Materials Recovery Facilities at the barangay level where segregation at source is being pushed.

The barangays have been urged to help collect, recover, recycle and reuse their respective garbage and bring to the dumpsite only the residual wastes, he said, adding that the barangays now engaged in the MRF program are Junob, Candauay and Calindgan.

For now, these are just the measures the city government can do to tackle the garbage problem because there has been no other LGU that is willing to host Dumaguete’s landfill, Awayan added. (FREEMAN)