NO TO GARBAGE. Personnel from the City Environment andNatural Resources Office (CENRO) install a signage that warns illegal dumpingof garbage in Barangay Margot. Mayor Pamintuan immediately ordered the clean-upof the area. Photo Courtesy of Angeles CIO
ANGELES CITY – The mounting garbage problem which has hounded this city for three years finally found a solution after the Metro Clark Waste Management Corporation (MCWMC) which maintains a German-technology landfill in Capas, Tarlac has agreed to take in local wastes.
Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan said he has persuaded MCWMC officials to allow the city to process its wastes in the landfill despite arrears of about P65 million incurred by the previous administration.
Two years ago, landfill authorities barred this city from the landfill because of the debt.
Pamintuan said that apart from opening up the landfill located in Barangay Kalangitan in Capas, the MCWMC also granted his appeal for it to lower its tipping fee of P1,000 per ton of garbage to only P500.
The mayor said that the move was timely amid the piling up of local wastes at this city’s material recovery facility (MRF) in Barangay Pampang.
He said garbage accumulated at the MRF were immediately transported to the landfill.
Meanwhile, the local environmental group Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM) asked Pamintuan to investigate “massive and indiscriminate” dumping of waste at a creek in Sitio Cabande, Barangay Margot in this city.
Sonny Dobles of the PGKM said there are reports that some of the wastes that had piled up at MRF were thrown into the creek.
In reaction, Pamintuan said he had already directed the city engineer’s office to cover the dumpsite with sand and prohibit further dumping in the area.
Dobles said that wastes, including those from piggeries, dumped in waterways here and in other parts of Pampanga might have been responsible for the fish kill reported earlier in the lower channels towards the Manila Bay.
In a statement released by the City Information Office, it also said that they already assigned guards to prevent the dumping of garbage in Margot.
“My administration inherited huge problems from former Mayor Francis Nepomuceno not just tons of waste but multi-million debt to the Kalangitan Landfill,” Pamintuan said.
–With reports from Joey Pavia
