A better way of dealing with garbage

The ongoing hearings on the Inayawan landfill site dispute at the Court of Appeals stand in stark contrast to Mandaue City Hall’s impending transfer of its dumpsite from Umapad to Casili and show just how far removed Cebu City is in terms of waste management and disposal to Mandaue City.

The transfer from Umapad to Casili came amid a closure order by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on the Umapad dumpsite which violated standards on the operation of a landfill site.

While Cebu City Hall, specifically the Osmeña administration, still had to come to grips with the closure order issued by Environment Secretary Gina Lopez, the Mandaue City government already has plans to operate a functional landfill site in Casili sometime soon.

This they did by virtue of their Comprehensive Land Use Plan which delineated areas in Mandaue City, including resettlement sites for displaced settlers. The Casili landfill site may or may not be up to par with DENR standards, but at least Mandaue City has one.

It’s not as if Cebu City Hall sorely lacks the resources to build its own landfill. Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said there is no other area in the city suitable for a dumping site, and despite wishing to operate the Inayawan landfill for another two years at least, Secretary Lopez’s order shunted any attempts to prolong its use.

So how did Mandaue City, which doesn’t boast the same revenues and economy as Cebu City, manage to build a landfill of its own ahead of the Queen City of the South?

Maybe it’s because of site availability, the generally united front of Mandaue City Hall’s officials when it comes to dealing with its problems and implementing its programs and even the city’s lower garbage volume compared to Cebu City’s daily 600 tons of garbage that can be credited for Mandaue City’s seeming ease in locating and building its own landfill.

When asked in a radio interview how come Cebu City’s garbage situation has worsened to what it is now, Osmeña blamed his predecessor for failing to address the problem and said he wasn’t fully aware of the extent of the garbage problem then.

The Inayawan landfill had already been declared unfit to continue operations since 2005, when Osmeña was still mayor, and yet it had been allowed to operate beyond capacity despite the mayor’s argument that there is still more room for garbage to be dumped in the area.

And we won’t even talk about how Mandaue City is doing a better job at implementing the plastic ban, something which the mayor’s critic Councilor Joel Garganera pointed out in a forum.

That said, we hope the Osmeña administration comes up with better solutions in properly disposing of the city’s mounting garbage volume than allowing the continued operation of the Inayawan landfill.