Group offers dumpsite for free to Bacolod City

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines -The Philippine Bio-Sciences Corporation (PhilBio), the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (MBCCI) and Greenpeace are offering the Magsungay dumpsite for free to be used by the Bacolod City Government for the disposal of its garbage. MBCCI had already sent pertinent papers to the offices of Mayor Evelio Leonardia, Vice Mayor Thaddy Sayson and Councilor Greg Gasataya, who chairs the City Council committee on environment and is the concurrent Clean and Green Task Force head. The Magsungay dumpsite is now under a laboratory-investment study by PhilBio, which will take 77 days prior to the establishment of a waste-to-energy digester facility. PhilBio said not a single centavo would be charged to the city. The PhilBio facility does not need several hectares of land for the garbage because it would immediately process them and convert methane into electric energy, it added. The letter, however, said that part of the pre-investment study of PhilBio is the transport of waste products from various sources, which is the only responsibility it is asking from the city. MBCCI vice president Jose Maria Zayco said: "Initially, we are asking the city to deliver its waste products coming from the four big markets - Central Market, Burgos, Libertad and Sum-ag. Also, we are asking for the waste product of the Bacolod slaughterhouse." "The PhilBio technology does not need to be segregated as it has a built-in processing for segregation. The dumpsite at Magsungay will be developed into a closed landfill not this hazardous open dumpsite," Zayco added. "All requirements of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will be taken cared of. The city simply collects all garbage in the markets and slaughterhouse and dump them in Magsungay," he also said. Zayco expressed his concern for Bacolod City, saying: "This is the service of the private sector and Greenpeace for the compliance of solid waste management program of the country. In a bigger scale, through all our collaboration, the city will earn carbon credits as stipulated in the Kyoto Protocol, living up to its name as the most livable city in the Philippines." - Sun.Star Bacolod