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MANDAUE CITY, Philippines - Starting Monday, personnel from Mandaue City barangays will be sent to Barangay (village) Umapad where they will be trained in the operation of a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).
In order to address dwindling space in the city’s dumpsite in Barangay Umapad, City Hall wants all 27 barangays to adopt Umapad’s MRF program, which organizers claim has reduced the barangay’s waste production by close to 70 percent.
The push for the MRF in all barangays comes amid the call of environment lawyers to close the Umapad dumpsite, citing national laws against open dumpsites.
The city, however, is not yet prepared for such a move, according to Mayor Jonas Cortes.
With no alternative area to dispose of the city’s waste, Cortes wants to continue using the Umapad dumpsite but reduce the volume of garbage dumped there.
With the MRF programs, the city hopes that less garbage will be dumped in the Tulo-Tulo sanitary landfill in Consolacion, where the Mandaue City government hopes to dump its waste after agreements with the town are made.
The city already has nine shredder machines worth P62,000. Each machine, which will be at the heart of each MRF, will be shared by three “clustered” barangays.
Environment lawyers lead by Gloria Estenzo Ramos and Ben Cabrido earlier described the Umapad dumpsite as an “ecological disaster” considering that the site is bounded by bodies of water such as the Butuanon River and the Mactan Channel.
Following this week’s MRF training, most garbage collection duties would be relegated from the city government to the barangays except for waste along major thoroughfares, which would still be collected by City Hall garbage trucks. All garbage would be brought to the nine MRF facilities where these were segregated.
At the MRF, recyclable materials will be saved while biodegradable materials are placed into a compost pit.
According to Barangay Canduman officials, composting made the barangay earn since the compost could eventually be sold as fertilizer at P50 per sack. More specialized fertilizers may also be produced and sold at P10 per kilogram.
Apart from Mandaue City, Lapu-Lapu City and the towns of Compostela, Lilo-an, and Cordova also hope to use Consolacion’s sanitary landfill, located in the town’s mountain areas.
