Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada on Thursday called on the 1.78-million Manileños to help keep the capital city clean as he revives the city government’s extensive cleanliness campaign and road clearing operations in the city continue.
Estrada also ordered all concerned city hall departments to start strictly enforcing the city’s 1994 anti-littering ordinance.
The mayor said residents can help by merely practicing proper waste disposal and garbage segregation.
With a population of 1.78 million, Manila produces 8,700 tons of garbage everyday, 30 percent or roughly 2,610 tons end up in the streets, drainage pipes and esteros, Estrada lamented.
Manila is one of the world’s most densely populated cities with 42,857 people per square kilometer, or 111,002 people per square mile.
Tondo is the most populous, accounting for 38 percent of the total population, followed by Sampaloc (20.7 percent) and Santa Ana (10.7 percent).
“You can just imagine, with this burgeoning population, the amount of garbage the city produces every day,” Estrada said.
Of the six districts of Manila, District 3 remains the “dirtiest” in terms of the volume of garbage being collected daily, according to Belle Borromeo, head of the Department of Public Services (DPS).
District 3 is composed 126 barangays in Binondo, Quiapo, San Nicolas and Sta. Cruz. With a land area of 6.24 square kilometers, it has a 2015 population of 221,780.
Borromeo said they collect 10 truckloads of garbage everyday from District 3 alone.
“That’s about 40 to 50 tons a day,” she said as she echoed Estrada’s call to city residents to observe discipline in waste disposal.
The DPS, Borromeo said, is closely working with the Metro Manila Development Authority in implementing anti-littering regulations in the city, including Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.
Estrada has initiated a relentless road clearing operation starting this June to bring back what Estrada described as Manila’s “beauty and old glory.”
The city government recently cleared Divisoria, Blumentritt Road, Sta. Cruz-Rizal Avenue area, Binondo, and Quiapo, driving away more than 3,000 illegal vendors and reducing traffic congestion in the major thoroughfares of the city.