Separate office on landfill matters eyed

Cebu City Solid Waste Management Board chairman Jade Ponce wants a separate office or department for all landfill matters so the in- charge officials will be able to focus on the remediation of the facility.

After the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill was closed to all forms of dumping and processing in December last year, Ponce said that there are still much works to be done because they cannot just abandon the landfill.

Ponce said that there should be a separate department handling the management of the landfill and reporting directly to the mayor.

“The landfill has been with the DPS (Department of Public Services) for such a long time. It’s about time to create a separate department for it so it can have its own budget and planning,” Ponce said.

Ponce said the landfill shares the manpower and budget of the DPS.

Being under its own department will make its personnel focus on the works to be done for remediation and rehabilitation of the landfill.

Ponce said it will be good to let Randy Navarro, the current landfill manager and at the same time assistant department head of DPS, head the new landfill management office, if permitted.

The landfill was closed for all forms of dumping last December.

It was the long awaited closure because the landfill has already exceeded its life span years ago.

The city now diverts its garbage in a private landfill in the town of Consolacion. The city pays P700 per ton of garbage dumped at the private facility. The city generates about 250 tons of garbage daily. It used to be almost 500 tons daily but the volume reduced after all barangays started implementing the no segregation, no collection policy.

Ponce said that the closure of the landfill does not mean the city stops from there. He said that the landfill will still have to be remedied.

Among the plans of the current administration is to convert the landfill into a park or housing site.

The city also considers other proposals which include converting the facility into a waste- to- energy power plant.

Ponce said that there are several proposals they are looking into at the SWMB.