Don’t let it go to waste

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

When the commissioning of the Bacolod City Sanitary Landfill in Barangay Felisa finally pushes through as planned on April 16, it will make the Bacolod one of the few cities in the country that have been able to comply with the sanitary landfill requirement of RA 9003 or the Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.

For the he city officials involved in the construction of this facility, that included fending off politically motivated complaints, and also dialog with well-intentioned critics who also wanted the best for the city and its environment, seeing the sanitary landfill go into operation could be considered as among the accomplishments that they can be proud of this is so, especially given the fact that only a few cities in the Philippines have been able to build sanitary landfills to replace the more common and environmentally hazardous open dumpsites.

However, because the sanitary landfill in Brgy. Felisa is designed for residual wastes, which means it cannot accept recyclables and compostables, the importance of proper waste segregation at the waste collection points and barangay level cannot be ignored. This little detail is important because we have seen just how unsuccessful the city’s attempts at waste segregation have been, despite  past attempts to enforce a “no segregation, no collection” policy.

If city officials were somehow able to muster the political will to ensure that the city would have a proper sanitary landfill, they must now concentrate their efforts on the enforcement of what will be a massive attempt  to properly segregate garbage before it is sent to the new landfill, because if the waste brought there is not properly segregated, then whatever advantages a sanitary landfill has over an open dumpsite, will be lost and the money spent to build such a facility will have gone to waste.

After all the hurdles and the birthing pains that came with it, it may be easy for city officials to assume that now that the sanitary landfill is almost ready for operation, the worst is over, when it is actually yet to come. Once the sanitary landfill starts operation, the city will have to find a way to get its residents to cooperate when it comes to waste segregation and its garbage collectors to use the sanitary landfill properly by not dumping any kind of waste into that facility indiscriminately. If it can’t, then while the city may have complied with the Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, it would be no better off than it was with an open dumpsites.*