CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The provincial government has achieved 40 percent of its solid-waste management target in the last four years
This was reported by the provincial government and the environment and natural resources office in a meeting of focal persons, as well as town and city environment and natural-resources officers.
However, Gov. Lilia “Nanay” Pineda said she is not satisfied with the accomplishments presented as she pointed out that there are still more things and more projects and programs that should be implemented to fully manage the solid waste in the province.
She also appealed to the municipal solid-waste management boards to take all the undertakings needed in making Pampanga the cleanest province by achieving zero waste.
“The provincial, municipal and city governments cannot do it alone, we need the active and full participation of all stakeholders in our campaign for zero waste. Let us involve everybody. Every entity is needed as everyone is producing garbage every day,” the governor said.
Hence, he urged the town and city environment and natural-resources officers to invite all sectors, such as vendors association, homeowners association, businessmen, religious groups, private and government hospitals, private schools, bankers, manufacturers, corporations—big and small—and members of town or city solid-waste management board to effectively and comprehensively implement the Republic Act (RA) 9003, or the Solid Waste Management Act of 2002.
The town environment officers presented their compliance on the solid-waste management, which shows that most of them are now using material-recovery facilities (MRF) for their solid waste collection and segregation.
The governor said she is partly happy with Floridablanca, Lubao, Santa Rita, Porac, Mabalacat, Guagua, Arayat, Apalit, Minalin, Sasmuan, Mexico and the city of San Fernando, who presented the flow of their waste disposal, proper composting and their compliance to RA 9003.
“I am happy but not 100 percent as I still see garbage on the road. We must act together to achieve zero waste in Pampanga and I want that as a legacy,” she said.
With this, she vowed to continue the provincial government’s full support to towns and cities that are most compliant with solid-waste management through the provision of additional dump trucks, baler machines, shredder and among other equipment needed for the operation and management.
Pineda suggested that there should be a cluster MRF in every town to save energy and gasoline in collecting the garbage. She also thanked the Holcim Philippines for collecting materials that it can use from the MRFs in the province.
“Napakalaking tulong ng Holcim dahil sa malaking kabawasan ang nahahakot niyong ‘holcimables’ sa mga MRF natin. Asahan ninyo ang aming suporta sa tulong na ginagawa ninyo sa Pampanga,” the governor said.
She will urge mayors to enter into a memoranda of understanding with Holcim and encourage them to make the MRFs more accessible through construction of concrete roads going to the solid-waste facilities. She also acknowledged the support of Metro Clark Sanitary Landfill on garbage disposal in the province.
However, she said the Metro Clark should not only think of their income that could be gained from the collected and delivered garbage.
“They should also give utmost priority to what they could support to the local governments by lowering the amount of tipping and hauling fees they are asking,” she added.
Pineda said it is a win-win approach to the problem on solid waste.
“With minimal fees, the local governments could deliver garbage to Metro Clark regularly as scheduled and they could also comply with the solid-waste management law and enjoy the clean and green environment in their respective towns,” she said.