BAGUIO CITY – The city government of Baguio is keenly studying its options where to dump its daily tons of residual waste once the engineered sanitary landfill (ESL) in Capas, Tarlac is closed come October.
Baguio City, along with over a hundred other local government units in Northern Luzon, stands to lose its final repository for residual waste following the recent announcement by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority that it does not plan to renew the contract for Metro Clark’s sanitary landfill facilities expiring this year in Capas, Tarlac.
Baguio City’s General Services officer Eugene Buyuccan said the city government, thru Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong, is now exerting all efforts to find another ESL and hopes to finalize the memorandum of agreement by September this year so as not to hamper residual waste disposal.
“We are currently reviewing the terms of two ESL facilities, one in Porac and another in Floridablanca both in Pampanga,” Buyuccan said.
He added the city already requested the Local Finance Committee for a supplemental budget amounting to P50 million to cover the additional cost of hauling, tipping fees and fuel expenses by October onwards.
Transferring the hauling of residual waste from the existing ESL in Tarlac which is 30 kilometers away to Pampanga would entail additional costs on the part of the city, Buyuccan explained, thus the need for a supplemental fund.
The city government is spending P190 million to P200 million annually for solid waste management and the bulk of the budget is being spent for the hauling of residuals.
In the 2022 Waste Analysis and Characterization Study (WACS), Baguio City is producing 550 tons of non-biodegradable garbage daily but only 190 to 200 tons a day is being disposed of to Capas.
Buyuccan said almost a hundred tons of the collected garbage is being segregated and managed in the city with the help of volunteers reducing the volume of recyclables collected by selling these to scrap buyers.
He also said this means of reducing residual wastes disposed to an ESL is something that needs to be strengthened in the city to further reduce the cost of waste management.
This will be realized, he said, with the establishment of a centralized Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) equipped with machineries to pulverize glass shards and cans, shred clothes and plastics among other technologies needed.
He added that the city government is now studying the feasibility of the project in partnership with a cement company that will utilize the by-products to ensure economic viability.