Mandaue gov’t closes Umapad dumpsite
The Mandaue City government is closing the Umapad dumpsite and has started exploring the possibility of dumping the city’s wastes in private landfills until the development of a consolidated waste facility is completed.
Mayor Luis Gabriel Quisumbing said that the city is having a big project which is the construction of the warehouse that will house the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) by next year.
“The biggest [of the projects] is the construction of the warehouse that would be housing these semi-automated MRF next year. So we’re already finished with the planning stages [and] we’re about to start the bidding process already,” he said.
“Until that facility is completed, we will be closing down the Umapad dumpsite. So while the redevelopment of the consolidated waste facility is being undertaken, we have already begun to explore the possibility of dumping our current volume of garbage in private landfills by the start of next year since we don’t have a budget provision for that for this year,” he added.
The project is done in partnership with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Exploration of Waste and Energy Facility.
According to Quisumbing, they are quite confident that it is going to be one of the most aggressive steps yet taken by any LGU to provide a consolidated waste treatment solution for the entire city.
Mandaue City projected that the first conveyor line will be operational in June next year. This is expected to be able to address about one third of the volume of garbage of the city immediately.
The installation of the second conveyor line will be late next year and shall be able to address about two thirds of the garbage volume by the first quarter of 2019.
The mayor said that they are building a facility that is big enough to house six lines.
“We actually need about three conveyor lines… the actual conveyors themselves are quite expensive so we can only acquire about two this time. But it will go a long way in helping solve our garbage problem,” he said.
Quisumbing said that they had set aside a budget of about P170 million for the MRI facility alone and also aims to have the facility built with no cost in the city aside from the fee to dump the garbage.
This would also mean an additional power supply since based on environmental laws, any energy produced by sustainable sources such as waste energy, etc. must be purchased by power producers.
Quisumbing also expressed that he personally believes the number one problem of the city is garbage and he is confident that through the project, they will be able to solve the problem.
“Whether we like it or not, and no matter what everybody will tell you, I personally believe that the number one problem in the city of Mandaue is how to deal with our garbage. And by embarking on this rather ambitious project, we are confident that we’ll be able to solve our garbage problem within the next 5 years,” Quisumbing said.