ILOILO City – This city generates 300 tons of trash a day, according to the General Services Office (GSO) of the city government.
Of these tons of garbage, 50 percent are biodegradable and 25 percent are recyclables, said GSO chief Joren Sartorio.
The remaining 25 percent are residuals. Residual waste materials are those left after the biodegradable wastes and recyclables have been set apart.
These are the ones that are brought to the sanitary landfill in Barangay Calajunan, Mandurriao district, said Sartorio.
Local government officials have been visiting institutional waste generators like malls, factories and warehouses to inform them that only segregated waste will be collected and only residuals will be accepted at the sanitary landfill.
The visits and information sharing are being done to address the garbage problem, which is one of the causes of flooding in the city, said Sartorio.
After the visit to institutional waste generators, Sartorio said they will be going to the barangays.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) issued a memorandum circular calling on barangays to activate their solid waste management councils.
Another GSO team is working out an agreement between barangays and junk shop operators so the former could send their recyclables to the shops to reduce the volume of wastes that will be sent to the landfill.
However, Sartorio emphasized that at present the “no segregation, no collection policy” only affects institutional waste generators.
At the household level, the GSO would conduct a waste analysis and characterization survey on the third or fourth week of this month to determine the present waste generation of barangays.
They are still in the process of procuring materials needed for the survey.
“It will be a random sampling because it is important that we get the waste generation of barangays,” said Sartorio.
The GSO has tapped the support of the University of the Philippines and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources – Environmental Management Bureau in coming up with the survey design.
To complement the effort, Sartorio said his office has requested the DILG to include the GSO as among their resource offices for the orientation of newly-elected barangay officials.
“We want to emphasize the need for waste segregation. We need the cooperation of barangay official to implement this segregation at source” he said. (PNA)
