Garbage crisis looms
City hall: No segregation, no collection
An uncooperative community has placed Dagupan mired in mounds of uncollected garbage in many parts of the city last week.
Trash piled up last week in the business district particularly near the Philippine Independent Church on Galvan Street, along Zamora and Amado Streets and Careenan District.
Teddy Villamil, chief of the Waste Management Division (WMD), said the city government purposely did not collect the garbage in that area to teach households and market vendors a lesson for stubbornly refusing to segregate their wastes.
Mayor Benjamin Lim has earlier ordered a strict implementation of the segregation policy in view of the worsening situation at the city’s open dumpsite.
Meanwhile, Vice Mayor Fernandez said the council will invite Villamil to shed light on the city’s looming crisis on garbage collection.
Fernandez is unperturbed by the memorandum issued by Lim directing department heads and staff not to attend regular or special sessions and meetings in the city council without his clearance.
SEGREGATION
The city government, through Villamil’s office, sent notices to all households on July 19 directing households to segregate their wastes with the warning that wastes and garbage not segregated would not be collected.
Households were enjoined to observe segregation of wastes in accordance with the regulations prescribed by Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 and Article 1, Section 3 of Ordinance No. 1929-2009 “Establishing a Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Program for the city of Dagupan”.
Under these provisions, all solid wastes that were not segregated do not have to be collected.
In the July 19, 2010 notice sent to all households, it was specified that those that the dumpsite will only accommodate are ceramic, busted bulbs, batteries, expired medicines, containers of hazardous chemicals, aerosol and medicine wastes or special wastes, used sanitary napkins, diapers, cotton buds.
The biodegradable wastes, i.e., peelings of fruits and vegetables, bones and entrails of fish, bones of chicken and pork, eggshells, rotten food, droppings of animals, grass, branches of trees and similar others, must be buried to become composts.
The WMD advised households to recycle or sell paper and cardboards, scrap iron and bottles and plastic containers.
Villamil said the garbage dumped on Galvan Street were mixed wastes placed in plastic bags and therefore were not collected.
He, however, eventually ordered the collection of the garbage in that area after being told that the city was becoming a public eyesore.
PROBE ON AWAI
As that developed, Vice Mayor Fernandez said the city council plans to review the contract entered into by the city when it bought the 30-hectare Awai land in 2002 for P16 million.
The council, she said, is considering to invite all the personalities who figured in the transaction, purchase and legal problem with claimants for CARP coverage.
The previous Fernandez administration earlier appealed the decision of the Department of Agrarian Reform Arbitration Board that placed the 30-hectare land under CARP in an attempt to recover the city’s acquisition.
Vice Mayor Fernandez said members of the city council want to know why the land was still bought despite a previous resolution passed by the city council at that time that held in abeyance the purchase of the property.
She suggested that if the land can no longer be recovered, the P16 million paid for the project be returned to the city coffer. –LM
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
