By BOY RYAN B. ZABAL
KALIBO, Aklan — Solid waste management may not be a problem in Kalibo and its adjacent municipalities soon.
Hectares of government-owned property in Makato may be developed as a provincial government-engineered sanitary landfill.
Gov. Florencio Miraflores has given the Department of Environment and Natural Resources the go-signal to study the landfill’s possible effects on the health and environment of communities around the site.
“The (landfill) site should have minimum potential risks to environment and human health,” said Miraflores.
“We have been looking for possible locations for the sanitary landfill,” he said. “The provincial government is now eyeing a government lot in Makato.”
Needed prior to landfill construction are engineering design, cost estimate, and feasibility study on possible impacts on sanitation, soil erosion, water pollution, use of land and local resources, topography, and geographical features.
While Kalibo is a rapidly booming town, its garbage are currently disposed to the open dumpsite in Barangay Bakhaw Sur here, facing the Sibuyan Sea, Miraflores said.
Once built, the sanitary landfill will also be opened for disposal of waste from New Washington and Numancia, Miraflores said.
In 2011, Malay opened its sanitary landfill in Barangay Kabulihan to address solid management issues in Boracay.
As part of its 10-year Solid Waste Management Plan in accordance with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, Malay also put up a centralized material recovery facility in Barangay Balabag. (Aklan Forum Journal/PN)
