TACLOBAN City is running out of time to find an alternative destination for its truckloads of garbage, the 2024 Citizen Participatory Audit report on the local government’s solid waste said.
A team of state auditors and representatives from civil society organizations submitted a 54-page report which revealed that the five-hectare sanitary landfill in Barangay San Roque, Tacloban City will be running out of room by the middle of next year.
The city government, in reaction to the audit findings, said it is “actively strategizing to diminish the volume of waste” with the aim of extending the landfill’s operational longevity by at least another year.
“Rather than resorting to the acquisition of an additional landfill site, the City is contemplating the procurement of an upcycling facility … to serve as a transformative hub where materials deemed obsolete or exhausted in their initial purpose are repurposed to new products or enhanced value,” the auditors added.
However, the cost of such an acquisition as well as the timetable for its implementation was not provided.
The landfill started operations in February 2019 with an estimated capacity of 120,000 cubic meters. At the time of completion, city officials expected that the facility would have a maximum lifespan of at least eight years or until February 2027.
But the audit group said the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) admitted that the landfill’s lifespan has been drastically cut short because the volume of trash generated by the city’s residents, commercial establishments, and industrial operations rapidly increased during the series of lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The CENRO forecasted that the sanitary landfill will reach its maximum capacity mid-year of 2025 and there have been ongoing proposals for alternative waste treatment and disposal methods,” the report said.
Data provided by the CENRO showed the city’s waste management program successfully reduced the volume of trash production per day for four straight years: 171 tons in 2016; 157 tons in 2017, 121 tons in 2018, 115 tons in 2019 and 108 tons in 2020. In 2021, when the global health crisis struck, the city’s solid waste generation increased by 58 percent to 171 tons a day.
The city government’s efforts to tame waste generation has produced good results as the number dropped to 148 tons a day in 2022 and 124 tons in 2023 but these were not enough to extend the landfill’s lifespan.
“At present, the sanitary landfill is almost full due to the acceptance of unsegregated or mixed wastes. The city government officials have been calling on the barangay officials to implement stricter waste segregation on the community as the city’s landfill which was opened five years ago is reaching its full capacity,” the audit group said.
