‘Waste diversion’ to extend

Sanitary landfills’ life, must

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, April 27 (PIA)—At the current rate of Boholanos’ generating ecological solid wastes every day, existing sanitary landfills may not be able to cope up with the refuse shortening their lives, until people adopt waste diversion programs.

The issue surfaced during the recent Kapihan sa PIA with Bohol Provincial Environment and Management Office (BPEMO) and the Provincial Ecological Solid Waste Management Council (PESWM) to tackle on the trash issue.

BPMO represented by ESWM focals Jeffrey Escaso and Leonilo Lafuente revealed the problem and shared how Bohol is coping with the rapidly doubling garbage generation.

This too as the BPEMO showed that Boholanos generate as much as 255,118.84 kilograms of biodegradable wastes, 92,842.41 kilograms of recyclable wastes, 88,750 kilograms of residual wastes and some 17,299.06 kilograms of special wastes for a whooping total of 454,010.7 kilograms every day.

For one, after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources started seriously implementing Republic Act 9003, the department started sending local government units, notices of violations in their operations of illegal open dumpsites.

Section 37 of the Act prohibits the use of open dumpsites for solid waste.

It states that “No open dumps shall be established and operated, nor any practice or disposal of solid waste by any person, including LGUs, which constitutes the use of open dumps for solid waste.”

In Bohol, while every LGU wrestled with the problem of piling garbage and the stinky issue of disposal, 18 towns including Tagbilaran City organized themselves in a cluster, cost sharing in the operation of a sanitary landfill consistent with the law, shared Lafuente, who has since transferred from the BPEMO coastal resource management sector to ESWM.

Alburquerque Cluster Sanitary Landfill (ACSLF) started operating then with a condition: only residual and special wastes are accepted in the common service facility.

Built on a 7 hectare lot, with 3 cells and a capacity of 12 tons per day projected to have a life span of 25 years, the ACSLF’s existence can only be enhanced when LGUS practice good waste diversion techniques to reduce the volume of wastes for disposal to the ACSLF.

“Thus plays waste diversion as this is critical to reducing the trash that goes to the sanitary landfills,” Escaso points out.

Among the key waste diversion techniques adopted by LGUs is legislating on regulating the use of plastics and using biodegradable and reusable containers instead, in the town operated wet markets and business establishments, Escaso pointed out.

And as residual wastes making a good 19 percent of the wastes heading to the sanitary landfills, LGUS here have started shredding plastic cellophanes and other residual wastes for possible recycling and upcycling.

Escaso points out the practice of up-cycling by Kalipunan nga Liping Pilipina Tagbilaran City with its Kalipi Up-cycling Resources Entrepreneurs, and the more practicable selling of shredded plastic for easier transport to a recycling consolidator in Catigbian.

On the other hand, Lafuente also pressed on waste segregation at source to significantly reduce wastes by simply allowing the biodegradable materials to become compost for fertilizer.

We do not need to have big compost pits, if we practice burying our biodegradable wastes in the yards where these contribute to the soil as fertilizers, hinted Lafuente.

Other commendable practices include Tubigon and Jagna’s pulverizing of glass bottles to be processed as bricks or concrete hollow blocks components when mixed with concrete, the use of recyclables into decorative items, upcycling of used tires into lawn chairs, pots and garden fixtures, recycling tarpaulins into bags and pouches and banning single-use plastics and styro. (PIABohol)

WASTE DIVERSION. Authorities at the BPEMO and the PESWMC represented by Leonilo Lafuente and Jeffrey Escaso hailed LGUS who have adapted waste diversion for possible upcycling and recycling as well as conversion into more creative items to drastically reduce the garbage heading their way to the operational legal sanitary landfills. (PIABohol)