PORAC, Pampanga – Prime Waste Solutions, the material recovery facility inaugurated only in June 2024 in this town, has apparently become the very problem it has been purported to solve.
The stench of garbage trucks passing through Barangay Planas to the MRF has become “so unbearably nauseating” that residents are calling out on the local government and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to shut down the PWS facility.
“Dapat maipasara na iyan. Hindi na kami makahinga sa baho,” said Merly Pineda, articulating the shared sentiment in this barangay of 5,068 residents (2020 Census) of a clear and present danger to their health the facility poses.
Barangay Planas kagawad Rex Ocampo said some 80 garbage trucks are passing along the village each day specifically along Purok 1 to the consternation of residents who have to cook and eat their food amid the foul odor emitted by the trucks.
On his Facebook page, Ocampo said the PWS general manager told him the MRF operates only until 10 p.m. but he noted that the garbage trucks still come in 24/7. “Imagine deng maigit 80 trucks a lalabas keng barrio tamu keng 24 oras magdalang basura. (Imagine more than 80 trucks that pass through our barrio within 24 hours carrying wastes).”
A media team who went to the site on June 10 observed some garbage trucks passing through Purok 1 of Barangay Planas not properly covered with their cargo dropping by the wayside.
It was also noted that the road already showed erosion due to the weight of the garbage trucks.
The stench in the area was as the residents claimed.
The PWS MRF only collects residual wastes which are baled and wrapped in plastics and stored unburied in an area within its site. Its operations are unlike a sanitary landfill where the waste is buried and covered with layers of soil.
Waste management experts have long said that long term storage of baled and wrapped residual wastes is unsanitary because of the possibility of leachate occurring which can seep through the aquifer and contaminate groundwater, posing risk to human health and the environment.
Other adverse effects of baled wastes noted are soi and air pollution, foul odor, pest and rodent infestations, landscape alteration, methane emissions, leachate management challenges, and negative impact on local ecosystems. Punto News Team/Contributed photos
