BAGUIO CITY – The city is in the process of selecting the best waste technology while negotiating for the possible site for its Integrated Solid Waste Management System (ISWMS).
City general services officer Romeo Concio said that of the 22 proposals for waste management schemes received by the city, ten have been shortlisted.
This will whittle down to only five by the middle of August and analysis and studies will continue until the best proposal is selected.
Concio said the proponents offered various technologies and schemes including waste-to-energy, plastic-to-diesel and several biodegradable techniques.
“We are considering everything and assessing them based on the city’s needs and capability,” Concio said.
As to the site, Concio said negotiations with the Benguet Corporation (BenguetCorp) continue after Mayor Mauricio Domogan’s meeting with company representatives recently on the firm’s reoffer for the use of its abandoned Antamok open pit mines in Suyoc, Itogon, Benguet as possible site for the city’s ISWMS.
Concio said the city is awaiting the draft of the memorandum of agreement currently being finalized by the BenguetCorp board.
The mayor earlier said he has signed the MOA with the firm for the sole purpose of jumpstarting the negotiations.
The MOA will be deliberated on by the BenguetCorp board and will be returned along with the proposed terms of reference to the city for approval and confirmation by the city council.
Concio said the city expects no environmental question this time as the city no longer plans to put up an engineered sanitary landfill.
He said the city will make sure that the technology chosen will not in any affect the environment including the river system in the area.
The area was first offered to the city government as possible location for the city’s engineered sanitary landfill in 2008 but was withdrawn in view of the prospects of reopening the mining operations and the objection of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the area being part the Upper Agno River basin watershed.
BC head Philip Romualdez then offered the area at no cost for a period of 30 years or more.
Whether the same terms apply would depend on the decision of the BenguetCorp board.
The mayor said that if plans materialize, the area will be used to house the city’s ISWMS technologies designed for the long-term solution of the city’s dragging waste problem.
It consists of several waste management strategies among which a waste-to-energy technology, a central material recovery facility, anaerobic digester and health care waste treatment facility, the Environmental Recycling System (ERS) machines and the ESL./Aileen P. Refuerzo
