CLARK FREEPOT – Not only Central and Northern Luzon, but Metro Manila as well stands to be endangered by the hazards of hospital wastes arising from the garbage crisis the government shutdown of the lone engineered sanitary landfill based in Tarlac will engender.
“The looming garbage crisis in Central and Northern Luzon regions will not only affect households and industries but will certainly pose major health problems as soon as the government’s plan to close down the engineered sanitary landfill in Capas is implemented,” warned Danny Abadilla, president of Clark Sanitation Services, at the media forum of the Capampangan in Media Inc. (CAMI) at Bale Balita here over the weekend.
A group of indignant hospital and toxic waste treaters have expressed fears that patients of some 1,000 hospitals including small clinics, as well as their workers, will be exposed to health hazards.
“[Kalangitan Sanitary Landfill’s] immediate closure is a helpless situation. We cannot collect and process medical and hospital wastes if there are no available and fully compliant sanitary landfill where we could dispose treated wastes,” noted Abadilla.
He said that most of these hospital wastes that are coming from the two regions, Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna, and as far as Palawan, are treated in their respective recovery facility before being taken to the Kalangitan Sanitary Landfill which is the only waste facility accredited by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Should the Bases Conversion and Development Authority and the Clark Development Corp. remain adamant in their decision to terminate the 25-year contract signed with the Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. (MCWMC) and cease operations of the Kalangitan Sanitary Landfill by October 5 this year, “most, if not all toxic wastes treatment firms will have no recourse but to stop the collection and processing of highly toxic medical wastes.”
“Apektado ang pasyente, apektado ang mga personnel sa mga hospitals, at apektado ang mga communities,” Abadilla declared.
He said medical wastes consisting of hypodermic needles body fluids, body parts, pharmaceuticals, radioactive materials, and health care establishments, health-related laboratories, and health research facilities generate cytotoxic drugs.
The Kalangitan Sanitary Landfill is the “only sanitary landfill accredited by DENR to accept medical wastes,” he furthered.
In the same CAMI forum, Christopher Tang, director for Business Development of SafeWaste Inc., said their treatment facility located near Kalangitan process some 30 tons of medical wastes per week from some 120 hospitals in Region 2 and the Cordillera Administrative Region.
He expressed fears over the severe environmental and health crisis that the closure of the waste facility will cause.
All treatment facilities engage in the collection, transportation, treatment, and disposal of medical wastes. Treatment of hospital wastes includes the use of pressurized steam in the microbial inactivation of pathogens found in infectious wastes. After treatment, medical wastes are taken to the Kalangitan Sanitary Landfill for final disposal.
SafeWaste Inc. general manager Al Kane called the MCWMC “a national treasure” and should be kept running.
1-M tons of wastes
The MCWMC said some one million tons of wastes are being brought to the waste facility for processing each year.
The Kalangitan Sanitary Landfill currently serves 150 local government units and more than a thousand industrial clients that represent roughly 15 million people in Central Luzon, Pangasinan, and the Cordilleras including the Summer Capital of Baguio City.
During the same media forum, MCWMC EVP Vicky Gaetos said they would also lodge “legal action” against the BCDA, who continues to ignore their pleas, and CDC, the original contracting party, if the waste facility is shut down.
Earlier, Capas Mayor Roseller Rodriguez had also said they are mulling on filing a case against BCDA and CDC if no alternative facility is identified.
Several affected LGUs in Pampanga, including the regional capital City of San Fernando, and Tarlac had cited a “severe environmental crisis” if the only environmentally-compliant facility is closed by October.
