Council pushing for rehab of landfill

The Cebu City Council wants the City Government to start working on the rehabilitation of the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill instead of apportioning one hectare inside the facility to set up a transfer station.

In its report, the committee on laws found the draft ordinance of Councilor Eugenio Gabuya Jr. to have circumvented the closure order of the Court of Appeals (CA).

“This is considering that the subject proposed ordinance seeks to use the landfill for garbage disposal or management, in particular, as a transfer station, instead of proceeding with the complete and sufficient rehabilitation of the landfill as ordered by the CA,” reads a portion of the report.

Prior to the presentation of the report, Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia, committee head, said that the draft legislation has “a very slim chance of passing the committee.”

He lamented that instead of insisting on the use of the landfill,” the City should convert it into something useful, or else the CA will cite it for contempt.

During last week's regular session, Gabuya, for his part, maintained that the construction of a transfer station will not run counter to the CA's order.

He explained that should the ordinance be passed, an infrastructure will be built where trash will no longer have to be deposited on the lot, but directly transferred from truck-to-truck.

Having a City-owned transfer station will help lessen the contract price it has with Jomara Konstrukct Corp. ( JKC), he added.

The City is paying JKC P1,375 per ton of garbage collected in all 80 barangays. This includes tipping fee, use of equipment, payment for the transfer station and the driver and loaders.

Of the amount, P200 per ton is paid to the owner of the transfer station JKC has entered into a deal with. With JKC collecting some 500 tons of trash daily, passing the ordinance will help the City save P100,000 every day, Gabuya said.

Mayor Tomas Osmeña ex- pressed support for the proposal, calling it a “practical and efficient” means of managing the garbage situation.

The P25 million allocated for the rehabilitation of the landfill will be used to fund the project.

As to the rehabilitation of the landfill, Councilor Margarita Osmeña said that the bidding process is now ongoing.

A public hearing will be held on April 18 to discuss the matter with officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Environmental Management Bureau 7.