Closure of Dagupan dumpsite imminent
PROCLAMATION NO. 1302
FINALLY, the Dagupan City government is ready to close the 50 year old dumpsite in compliance with Republic Act No. 9003, or the “Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000”.
Mayor Belen T. Fernandez announced in her inaugural address that Proclamation No. 1302, series of 2016, amending Proclamation No. 98, series of 1963 issued by then President Diosdado Macapagal, segregating 19,261 square meters of public land declared as parks and playgrounds in Bonuan Binloc for waste management facility purposes of the City Government of Dagupan, was finally signed by President Benigno Aquino III, before stepping down from office.
She said the signing of the proclamation by President Aquino last June 23 will pave the way for the establishment of the waste-to-worth facility that will require the closure and clean-up of the old dumpsite in Bonuan.
The facility, to be built at no cost at all to the city, will convert garbage collected daily from homes, markets, schools and factories, into diesel fuel for jeepneys and motor boats as well as biogas to be used for cooking in homes and also lighting for them.
“Not only that, we will also help the environment by making sure that our garbage, our plastic debris will not pollute our oceans. This will in turn, allow us to bring Dagupan’s beaches back to their former beauty and glory,” she said.
The $8.2 million waste-to-worth project will be established with the help of Procter and Gamble, the U.S. State Department, International Ocean Conservancy, Asian Development Bank, United Nations and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Last year, Mayor Fernandez was invited as a resource speaker in a world ocean forum in Chile that discussed among others the establishment of the waste-to-worth facility that will make Dagupan eventually as model of this project in the whole world.
The old dumpsite is generating some 30 metric tons of wastes daily, the minimum requirement to run the plant.
Fernandez said the scavengers who will be displaced with the closure of the dumpsite will be resettled in row houses in Sito Korea, Bonuan Binloc. A day care center was also built in the area for their children.
The scavengers will also be given the first priority to be hired to work in the facility. (Leonardo Micua)
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