Sto. Tomas last option for Baguio garbage

MAYOR Mauricio Domogan explained the 50-hectare portion of the 139-hectare cityowned property in Sto. Tomas School Area will serve as the last option for the put up of the long overdue sanitary landfill with waste-to-energy (WTE) facility towards an eventual solution to the city’s garbage disposal woes.

The city executive said that once the negotiations for the Antamok open pit site as a site for the sanitary landfill with a WTE facility fails, the local government will be left with the last option to pursue the project in the segregated 50-hectare portion of the city-owned property in Sto. Tomas School Area.

“The city will have to appropriate the required funds to build the road network within the property to help facilitate the construction of the sanitary landfill. In the meantime, we have to wait for the realization of the same project within the Beguet Corporation property in Itogon to guide us in our future decisions on how to effectively and efficiently address our garbage disposal woes,” Domogan stressed.

Based on initial estimates from the City Engineering Office, the local government needs at least P300 million to build the road network within the city-owned property before the construction of the sanitary landfill facility can be implemented considering the existing terrain in the area.

Further, the local government also earmarked some P5 million for the fencing of the perimeter of portion of the property for this proposed purpose but the project cannot proceed because the residents in the area allegedly removed the monuments that were placed by the members of the survey team identifying the metes and bounds of the proposed landfill site.

Under the city’s 10year solid waste management plan which was approved by the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC), the city-owned property was identified as the proposed site for the sanitary landfill and WTE facility which will include a small engineered sanitary landfill, a centralized materials recovery facility, an anaerobic digester, WTE plant, two Environmental Recycling System (ERS) machines, hazardous waste treatment plant and special waste treatment plant.

Domogan said the local government is requesting the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to include in its future budget the required funding for the construction of the road network of this city-owned property to help put an end to the expensive hauling of the generated residual waste outside the city in the future.

For the past 9 years, the local government spent more than P1 billion for the hauling of the city’s residual waste to the sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac.