Mandaue submits dumpsite closure plan to DENR 7

Quisumbing announces plan to open 5 material recovery facility in 2017

THE Mandaue City Government has submitted a closure plan to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) 7 to shut down its dumpsite in Barangay Umapad within the next two years.

Mayor Luigi Quisumbing said he intends to close the dumpsite because for many years it has not been compliant with the environmental laws.

Despite this, the City continues not to charge any collection fee from every household in Mandaue.

Quisumbing said he also does not have plans to encourage the City Council to approve an ordinance for such purpose.

“This is a service that we should be really providing. It’s part of the tax collection efforts. And even when you pay cor- porate tax, there’s a built-in assumption that the collection of garbage is included in the services that you pay for with the tax collection,” said Quisumbing.

In a press conference, the mayor announced that the City will open and operate five clustered material recovery facility (MRF) next year. This means that one MRF will be provided for the clustered barangays.

“Spaces is one of our biggest challenges in Mandaue City. As much as we want to, not every barangay can operate a true MRF given the volume of garbage so what decided to do is we clustered the City into five different clusters and then we have one MRF per cluster that the City will spend for,” said Quisumbing.

The barangay that will serve as the host of a clustered MRF will be given ad- ditional budget for road repairs. Roads may be damaged because of the volume of trucks that will pass by the area.

The City will also allocate a budget for the personnel that will be assigned at the facility.

“We can also assure the public that once we are able to set up their MRFs properly, dili siya baho, dili siya hugaw (it will not be smelly and unorganized),” said Quisumbing.

The planned clustered MRF is also in preparation for the City Government to operate a waste-to-energy facility.

Earlier, Atty. Benjamin Cabrido, City’s environmental protection consultant, presented to the City Council a fouryear rehabilitation plan for the Umapad dumpsite in compliance with the law to develop it into a sanitary landfill.