Dagupan City—After barely a year, the city government here has cleared more than half of the city’s decades-old mountains of garbage occupying a four-hectare open dump near the shoreline of the Tondaligan Beach in Barangay Bonuan Boquig.
This was after Mayor Brian Lim stopped the dump’s operation in January last year and ordered its rehabilitation to comply with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, which prohibits the operation of open dumps.
Residents, including judges, prosecutors, lawyers and employees in the nearby Hall of Justice and other government offices thanked Lim for his decisive action, saying it was “a win for the environment.”
Lawyer Danilo Fernandez, who had just retired last month as clerk of court, said since the middle of last year, the foul odor from the dump had vanished and the flies that swarmed the nearby eateries had disappeared.
Between July 2013 and June 2019, the Tondaligan Beach, the city’s main tourist attraction, turned into an “ecological disaster zone” after the city administration at that time continued to defy the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ repeated orders to close the dump.
As a result, the dump grew wider from two hectares to four hectares, spilling leachate into the Tondaligan Beach and its stench reaching the halls of the trial courts and other government offices about 300 meters away.
Frequent fires were also reported during the period because of spontaneous combustion while residents near the area complained of flies invading their homes.
Bernard Cabison, the city’s waste management division chief, said that what used to be a garbage maze had been flattened, enabling him and the other workers in the area to now see and appreciate the beauty of the Tondaligan Beach from their office.
Cabison said that, after the dump was closed last year, the mountains of garbage in the area were hauled to a sanitary landfill outside of this city. The dump site was expected to be totally cleared by the end of this year, Cabison said.
The mayor said part of the rehabilitation plan was the establishment of a “residual containment area,” where biodegradables are shredded and composted.
“This is to minimize the volume of the garbage that we haul out of Dagupan City. By doing that, we also reduce hauling expenses because there will be less volume of garbage,” said Lim.