HUNDREDS of local government officials are facing criminal and administrative charges for failing to address the garbage problem in their own backyard, the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC) said.
The NSWMC said there are still more than 400 open dumps in various parts of the country.
While the number of open dumps have gone down from 1,043 in 2001 to 900 in 2010, the NSWMC is continuously reminding local government units that operation of open dumps are illegal and should be stopped.
Republic Act (RA) 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, mandates the closure of all open dumps, which cause health and environment problems.
“Since last year we have already submitted a report to the Ombudsman. A total of 350 local governments are now being investigated,” NSWMC Executive Director Eli Ildefonso said.
The complaints, he said, were based on the reports and recommendation of NSWMC regional offices.
Many local governments are also being investigated for failing to establish materials recovery facilities (MRF) where garbage is to segregated for waste reduction, reuse, recycling and composting.
“Only about 80 percent of local governments have MRFs,” he said. There are a total of 1,634 towns and cities in the country.
Ildefonso said local officials are to blame for the poor compliance of RA 9003 which aims to address the solid waste management problem.
The law mandates local governments to take the lead solid-waste management to reduce waste by at least 25 percent and their proper disposal to sanitary landfills.
Unfortunately, the NSWMC noted poor compliance of the law by local governments more than 25 years after it took effect.
According to the NSWMC, only 79 percent of local governments, or 1,287 out of the 1,634, have submitted their 10-year solid waste management plans between 2010 and 2015, beating the June 30, non-extendable deadline for the local government’s submission.
Of the submitted garbage plans, only 122 have been approved by the NSWMC as of November 25, 60 of which were approved just this year, Ildefonso lamented.
He said it takes the NSWMC only a month to evaluate and render a decision whether to approve or reject the 10 year solid waste management plans submitted by a local government.
Many of the plans submitted, he said, are incomplete or not backed by studies, if not poorly designed.
“Walang solid waste characterization. Kulang ang dokumento. That’s the main reason only 122 plans have been approved so far,” he said.
Solid waste analysis and characterization, he added, should be the basis of local governments on how they plan their collection, storage, segregation, recycling and composting before disposal to a controlled landfill duly approved by the NSWMC.
Most local governments do not have the technical or financial capacity to comply with the Solid Waste Management Act, Ildefonso said, but added that it should not pose much of a problem, citing as an example the effort of the 122 localities whose 10-year solid waste management plans have been approved by the office.
The NSWMC continues to provide technical assistance and offer expertise on solid waste management to boost local government’s compliance of the law for free, Ildefonso said.
“Pag magpapatawag kami ng seminar, hindi naman nagsisipag-attend. Gusto nila sa abroad o sa mga resorts gagawin,” Ildefoso lamented.
Ildefonso said that the local governments also have to allocate budgets for proper solid-waste management. “Mayayaman naman iyong iba, pero hindi naglalaan ng budget para sa solid waste,” he said.
According to Ildefonso, the country produces 40,000 tons of garbage every day, or 14.6 million tons in a year, 70 percent of which are household wastes, which could be segregated and reduced if only local governments were seriously implementing the garbage law.
He said the NSWMC is encouraging localities to activate and mobilize their respective solid waste management boards from the provincial down to city, town and barangay levels, to effectively address the country’s garbage problem.