At least 51 city-owned dump trucks with thousands of tons of garbage still drove to the Inayawan Landfill on Saturday morning to dispose of the wastes collected from the different barangays in the city despite the closure order from the Court of Appeals.
Cebu City Department of Public Service (DPS) head Roberto Cabarrubias, on Friday, had said they would be using the area behind the DPS building at the South Reclamation Project (SRP) as the transfer station starting today, Saturday. However, some drivers claimed they were not informed about the closure so they drove straight to the landfill.
As of 11:40 a.m., 51 trucks already dumped collected garbage at a side portion of the landfill as the main dumping area was already closed. Each truck has a carrying capacity of 1,000 kilos to 6,000 kilos.
A driver of the dump truck, which collected garbage from Barangay Zapatera, said he was never informed about the changes and had no choice but to just dump the garbage in Inayawan.
Drivers of the dump trucks that collected garbage from Barangays Sambag 1, Sambag 2, Quiot, Calamba, Apas, Tejero, Mambaling, Bacayan, Tisa, Capitol Site, Kinasang-an, Lorega, Kamouthae, Bulacao and Tinago also claimed there was no directive for them to dump the wastes elsewhere.
Cebu Daily News also visited the site in SRP behind the DPS building and found that no truck had so far gone to the area to dispose of their collected garbage.
Cabarrubias had said that the area behind the DPS building will be used as temporary dumping site for the next three days while they are developing a bigger area, also within SRP.
He said the “final temporary dumping area” is the one-hectare land in SRP located between two major commercial and residential developments, the upscale condominium enclave City di Mare of Filinvest Land and the SM Seaside Cebu, one of the country’s biggest mall complex.