Waste to Worth project in Dagupan City soon
THE Ombudsman is set to investigate close to 600 local government executives in the 13 administrative regions for violations of Republic Act No. 9003, or the “Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000″ and among them are mayors, vice mayors and sanggunian members of towns in Pangasinan that have not closed their dumpsites.
But Mayor Belen Fernandez believes she is not one among the 600 local government executives facing a complaint filed by the Ecowaste Coalition.
She said that those likely named respondents in the complaint are local government executives who have no plans of easing their solid waste problems while continuing to operate open dumpsites.
Ms. Fernandez, at the KBP Forum in Dagupan City last Thursday, said plans are already underway for the establishment of $8.2 million Waste to Worth Facility that can convert solid wastes into biogas as well as diesel to be built in Dagupan at no cost at all to the city government.
The facility will be established with the help of Procter and Gamble, the U.S. State Department and Ocean Conservancy that invited her as a resource speaker last year in a world ocean forum in Chile that had something to do with the establishment of the Waste to Worth Facility and make Dagupan as model of this project for the whole world.
The mayor said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Environmental Management Bureau have treated the request of the city for the segregation of a portion of the Tondaligan National Park where the facility will rise as top priority.
Once the lot is segregated, Waste to Worth will establish the facility in Dagupan which is generating some 30 metric tons daily, the minimum requirement to run the plant.
The mayor said the city is pursuing the W2W after the government placed the 30-hectare lot in Barangay Awai, San Jacinto bought by the past administration of then Mayor Benjamin Lim intended for a sanitary landfill was placed under the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.
Ms. Fernandez said the city government has already built row houses in Sitio Korea Bonuan Binloc, for the families of scavengers that were living within the dumpsite and a day care center for the children of these families. (Leonardo Micua)
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