CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The provincial government has started its aggressive campaign to segregate waste at source using Germany’s color-coding scheme.
Gov. Lilia “Baby” Pineda on Sunday announced that they will launch their project in Lubao town and nearby Sta. Rita as part of the campaign to effectively segregate garbage produced by the some 293,000 households in Pampanga.
She said that the scheme will allow them to transfer “minimal” volume of waste at the sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac, some 25 kilometers north of this city.
Art Punzalan, head of the Environment and Natural Resources Office (ENRO), earlier disclosed that the province is estimated to spend at least P.5 billion annually for throwing garbage at sanitary landfills.
This he said will use one third of the capitol’s budget of P1.45 billion this year.
Third District Board Member Monz Laus, chairman of the committee on heath, said the “governor saw the need to clean and segregate waste” to stop the spread of major and minor diseases in the province.
She also disclosed that Pineda had worked hard for the medication and discharge of at least 11,000 people from the regional hospital Jose B. Lingad “alone” after one year since July of 2010.
Based on research of her consultants, Pineda said Germans started to aggressively separate solid, liquid, gaseous and radioactive wastes in the early 90’s in most cities in Germany’s 16 states.
Government tax officer Milanie Kruetz-Hengst, whose mother is from Barangay San Joaquin, Mabalacat, Pampanga, told Punto that “we heavily segregate waste in Germany.”
She said that in her native city of Cologne and nearby Leverkusen, they started “true” segregation at home in the early 90’s.
Hengst, now based in Leverkusen, disclosed that they use at least four types of color for their garbage containers to identify the kind of waste, which at the end of the day are transferred to the so-called “ton.”
The tons are also color-coded and being put in front of the houses.
“If the garbage collector opens the ton and see that it contains what is not supposed to be there, he will not get it,” Hengst said.
She added that her fellow Germans liked the scheme because they pay less to the government compared to other garbage collection programs used in the past.
Hengst said their Federal Parliamentary government sends a letter to all residents yearly to explain new innovations and necessary information about the country-wide waste-segregation program.
The 60-year-old governor said she had chosen Lubao and Sta. Rita because town Mayors Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab and Yolly Pineda, respectively, “are my relatives.”
Mylyn is the daughter of the governor, while Yolly is her daughter-in-law. “I have to start in the two towns before I launch it in the whole province.
I can pound on them and they will understand,” said Pineda, who asked regional and provincial Department of Education officials to help her disseminate the importance of waste segregation.
“There should be a test run to see the problems so that we can make necessary adjustments,” she said.
Pineda earlier asked Fourth District Board Member Nestor Tolentino, chairman of the committee on environment, to work on an ordinance empowering village official to collect a minimum P2 per household daily as garbage fee.
She added that the collection should be handled by barangay officials but could only be released with the approval or knowledge of religious leaders or other private groups in their respective barangays.
Earlier, it was learned that the Pineda administration has set at least P200 million funds for tipping fee for the sanitary landfill use in Capas owned by a private firm.
“The tipping fee excludes the operation of transferring it from Pampanga. There is really a need for cooperation and contribution from our people,” Tolentino said.
