A new landfill

On a newsstand along the way to the airport last Friday for my trip to Davao City, I was horrified to read the headline of The FREEMAN saying “Labella stops trash dumping”. The headline has many interpretations, including the most negative thought I could imagine which was that nobody was collecting our garbage and our city would be stinking. So, the first thing I did when I reached the airport terminal was to get hold of a copy of the paper.

The news story assuaged my fears. Garbage in our city will still be collected. Mayor Edgardo Labella was quoted about stopping the dumping of trash by neighboring local government units at the landfill owned and operated by ARN Central Waste Management Inc., in Barangay Binaliw this city. Mandaue City, Liloan, Compostela, and Consolacion are reportedly throwing their waste in Binaliw. They have, in the spirit of cooperation, until July 30 this year to dump their trash. Labella wants that privately-owned landfill only receiving waste generated in Cebu City.

The first challenge to this directive appears to be legal. Of course, Labella, being a lawyer, knows the difficulty of limiting the operations of a private enterprise. I assume this facility routed all its papers through all concerned government agencies like the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, to legitimize operations. Having secured all requirements, it must have a business permit. But I don’t imagine that when its papers and permits were issued, they contained provisions limiting its operations to be the landfill for Cebu City garbage. In short, I don’t believe the city can prevent this facility from accepting waste from other LGUs.

Still, the best move is for the city to create its own landfill while dumping garbage at the privately-owned landfill. There are immediately recognizable reasons for embarking on this project. The amount of garbage the city generates is in the hundreds of tons daily. This volume is so huge that we can expect to fill the Binaliw facility in a short duration. It is thus imperative that while this landfill can still absorb the city’s trash, the city prepares a bigger facility for the foreseeable future.

The tipping fee has to be considered. This is the business of ARN. It runs into millions and as the years go by, this fee can also go up. When the city pays this fee, it cannot recover the money anymore. We all know the basic law of supply and demand. When the private operators of the Binaliw landfill believe that they have no competition, they can always rationalize a demand to increase the tipping fee. The city is at its mercy.

There is an area in the city that can be an ideal place for the establishment of a landfill. It is situated in the valley located in barangays Guadalupe, Busay, and Lahug. It therefore sits right smack in the middle of the city such that it can be accessible easily to the barangays in the south as well as in the north district of the city. Transportation costs will be reduced significantly. This area was pointed to me by the late mayor Ronald Duterte, when I poked into his vision for our city. The new mayor may visit this place to check its viability. Then he can push his top agendum of cleaning the city to the hilt.