GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/06 September) – The provincial government of South Cotabato is planning to start operating by next month the province’s first-ever cluster sanitary landfill located in Surallah town.
Ramon Ponce de Leon, Provincial Environment and Management Office (PEMO) chief, said their latest monitoring showed that the P7.7-million sanitary landfill project is already nearing completion and could become operational by October.
“The project is progressing as targeted and we expect the completion of its major components within the next few weeks,” he said.
Ponce de Leon said he earlier assigned a monitoring team from their office to regularly evaluate the status of the project, which is being constructed in a six-hectare property in Barangay Colungulo in Surallah.
The provincial government allocated some P5 million for the construction of the sanitary landfill, which will mainly benefit at least six municipalities in the province.
The Surallah cluster sanitary landfill will serve the host municipality and the neighboring towns of Norala, Sto. Nino, Banga, T’boli and Lake Sebu.
In preparation for the opening of the project, Ponce de Leon said they are currently conducting meetings with the Provincial Solid Waste Management Board to assess its cost-recovery aspect.
“We’re specifically studying the implementation of the tipping fees that will be charge to local government units that will dispose their residual wastes at the landfill,” he said.
He said they have been studying various mechanisms that will further enhance the implementation of the province’s solid waste management program, especially at the municipal level, to ensure the proper utilization of the sanitary landfill.
Ponce de Leon said they approved the release of some P150,000 as financial assistance for the construction of central material recovery facilities or CMRFs in the six municipalities covered by the Surallah project and the four remaining towns covered by two more proposed sanitary landfill projects in the province.
He said the CMRFs will be mainly utilized to collect recyclable wastes in a central facility within a municipality or community.
Siegfred Flaviano, PEMO supervising environment management specialist, said they initially released the assistance for the identified CMRF sites in Barangay Lamian in Surallah, Barangay Yangco in Banga, Barangay Poblacion in Sto. Nino, and, Barangay Esperanza in Norala.
“The four municipalities were able to comply immediately with the requirements needed for the release of the cash assistance that include the barangay resolution, labor expense, location and the bill of materials for the project,” he said.
The provincial government earlier tied up with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Philippine Environmental Governance Project (EcoGov) for the development of a clustering strategy for the establishment of sanitary landfills in the
province.
Aside from Surallah, the local government is also working for the construction of cluster sanitary landfills in Polomolok town and in Koronadal City.
The construction of the sanitary landfill is in compliance with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2001 or Republic Act 9003.
RA 9003, signed into law by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2001, provides for the closure of all open dumpsites in favor of sanitary landfills and ordered the segregation of recyclable and non-recyclable wastes. (Allen V. Estabillo/MindaNews)