CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—The city government will finally close its 17-hectare landfill on April 15 as part of its plea bargain and compliance with the Solid Waste Management Act.
City Local Environment Resources Office Chief Edwin Dael said Thursday the current dumpsite will be closed permanently, as it is a violation of the Republic Act 9003 or the Solid Waste Management Act of 2003.
A new engineered sanitary landfill will be opened on the same day, in Barangay Pagalungan, 16 kilometers away from the city center.
The new landfill stands on 45 hectares of land already cleared by the environment management bureau and mines and geosciences bureau.
The old dumpsite is now undergoing rehabilitation, with nine hectares now covered with soil and planted with trees.
The rehab will be completed this year, and the old dumpsite will be converted into a tree park.
The city government has spent P100 million for the opening of the new landfill, which would comply with RA 9003.
CdO has been making headway in information and education among the residents on the proper disposal of garbage and segregation at the source.
City information officer Maricel Casino-Rivera said the capability building of barangays in garbage collection has been going on since 2015.
“The barangays are tasked to collect garbage as mandated by RA 9003, so we need to empower the barangays in their capacity and capability to collect garbage,” Casino-Rivera said.
This city of almost 1 million residents is producing 560 tons of garbage daily, with a current disposal rate of 360 tons.
Elsa Mabelin of the Solid Waste Management Task Force said the city is targeting 23 percent or 128.8 tons of residual waste to be collected and dumped at the new landfill.
“In 2014, the city government targeted 27 percent diversion rate of garbage. Meaning, 27 percent should be collected by recycling,” Mabelin said.
This year, the diversion rate is still 29 percent instead of its target 50 percent, Mabelin added.
With the enforcement of the RA 9003, it is expected that only 23 percent of residual waste will be dumped at the landfill.
“We must enforce segregation at the source, so that only residual waste will be reached and dumped at the landfill,” Mabelin said.
“We request our communities to help out with the garbage disposal as it is the role of everyone to properly dispose our garbage,” Casino-Rivera said.
Engineer Ed Bartolome of IPM Construction and Development Corp., the company collecting the city’s garbage and the one that designed the engineered landfill, said what they are doing is following RA 9003 to the letter.
Bartolome said they have 45 compactor garbage trucks roaming around the city, and they will add more dump trucks to transport the residual garbage from a transition point at the current dumpsite.
Bartolome said the new landfill will have linings made of geosynthetic clay liner and high-density polyethylene [HDPE], which will prevent seeping of waste water to waterbeds.