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The fire that broke out at the Inayawan landfill emphasized anew the urgency for the Cebu City government to relocate its overfilled waste site or get serious about reducing the daily truckloads of garbage being discharged there.
When sought for an explanation, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña could only say there wasn?t sufficient soil cover being spread to keep fires from rekindling. It has been nine months since the accumulated garbage ignited a series of wildfires in the landfill.
The inadequate soil cover only proved the futility of band aid solutions.
The Cebu City government needs a clear long term plan for relocating the landfill, which reached its storage limit years ago.There was a plan to open another landfill in the mountain barangay of Kalunasan but residents there weren?t keen on the idea.
Cebu City had the headstart in a campaign for waste segregation several years ago but its ordinance mandating the sorting of biodegradable trash from non-biodegradable trash at the household and community level started in fits and starts, never quite taking root.
Instead of following the lead of Luz barangay captain Nida Cabrera who has mobilized her community into a thriving enterprise of waste recycling, most barangay captains in Cebu City seem more interested in getting an appropriation to purchase garbage trucks.
The vehicles just encourage barangays to pick up more garbage to transport to the overstuffed Inayawan landfill.
Instead of reducing garbage volume at the source, and spending their waste management budgets for a neighborhood drive for composting, segregation and recycling, barangay captains want four wheeled assets.
Why? Figure that out, said a City Hall insider, and you?ll understand what best motivates the typical barangay captain.
So City Hall is stuck with short-term problem solving of how to contain fire outbreaks in the methane-rich mounds of the Inaywan landfill.
A gem of a draft ordinance which seeks to ban or reduce the use of plastic shopping bags in Cebu City and avoid clogging drainage systems is already forward-thinking. It just needs genuine support from City Hall officials.
In the private sector, the Philippine Retailers Association in Cebu has taken the challenge to design ?green bags? for all its members, which would be a first in this part of the country. Without waiting for a penalty clause, they want to pull back on plastic buildup.
Ireland, Australia and San Francisco City in the United States have government-led campaigns and plastic-bage reduction ordinances that other urban centers are trying to copy.
If the brains behind the Cebu CIty mayor?s management team worked half as hard in addressing the landfill and regular garbage collection as they do in finding investors for the South Road Properties (SRP), the city wouldn?t be wallowing in trash.
Until officials pay attention, the flameouts in Inayawan will be torches to remind us of an unfinished problem.
