ILOILO City – Over 80 tons of assorted garbage were collected by the city government’s street sweepers in the aftermath of the Dinagyang Festival 2023.
This volume of waste was collected in the City Proper area only where the highlights of the festival were held, according to City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) head Neil Ravena.
As early as 3 a.m. yesterday, around 300 sweepers were already working and left the downtown area clean at 7:45 a.m.
The cleaners were able to carry out a total of 33 trips (25 trips from contracted garbage collector JS Layson and eight trips from city government trucks) of collected trash.
Ravena said “80 to 90 percent” of the waste collected were single-use plastics while others were food packaging and empty bottled water.
For the Dinagyang Festival, the CENRO head said they were able to situate 80 trash bins across the city and as expected these were overwhelmed with trash from revelers.
For next year’s Dinagyang, Ravena said they were eyeing to double the number of trash bins, citing the doubled number of portalets this year.
Meanwhile, Mayor Jerry P. Treñas was all praises to the General Services Office (GSO) and CENRO for spearheading the task to clean the city after Dinagyang.
“I thank the personnel of the GSO and the CENRO. After Dinagyang, the city is so clean,” he said./PN
