Dumaguete eyes mechanisms for waste management at brgy level

By Rachelle M. Nessia

Thursday 28th of June 2012

DUMAGUETE CITY, June 28 (PIA) -- The city government here is eyeing measures to spur local barangays to initiate pollution management in the villages to reinforce the local government’s current waste management system.

This was revealed by City Administrator William Ablong during a meeting with representatives from Silliman University’s Dr. Jovito Salonga Center for Law and Development (SLCD) held June 14.

One of the said measures is the establishment in each barangay of a material recovery facility (MRF) and a composting area.

Ablong said the move is borne out of the city government’s efforts to identify a specific location for its planned sanitary landfill.

In the same meeting, Lloyd Patrimonio of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Albert Aquino, president of the Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) here, both stressed the need for a system of waste characterization and for this to be adopted in the households as well.

They pushed for the enhancement of the garbage collection procedure of the city to ensure waste segregation at source continues until the dumpsite.

Meanwhile, in the same gathering, a four-point action plan was drafted with the aim of boosting the solid waste management program of Dumaguete City.

Silliman University Director for Information and Publications Mark Raygan Garcia said, one of the action plan’s priorities is capacity-building geared towards a more efficient identification of solid waste management opportunities.

The four points are: (1) to conduct a workshop on waste streaming (industry analysis) to identify the waste sectors, generators and users involved; (2) to conduct another workshop on waste segregation with the 22 barangays, excluding the poblacion areas; (3) to intensify efforts to locate viable landfill sites for metro Dumaguete and (4) to explore alternative options to landfill. (RMN-PIA7 Negros Oriental, with reports from SU-OIP)