Independent researches recommended that the local government must be able to put in place appropriate mechanisms that will pave the way for an effective solid waste management geared towards curbing the prevailing garbage collection and disposal woes of the city.
Dr. Gladys Navarro, an independent researcher from the St. Louis University (SLU), disclosed that 60 percent of the respondents in an online survey are reportedly in favor of the proposed policy on pay as you throw while around 34 percent of the same have no concrete recommendations on how to address the city’s garbage collection and disposal problems.
Under the proposed policy on pay as you throw, households will be required to pay P10 for every 10 kilos of segregated waste plus an increment of P5 for every additional kilo of segregated garbage.
Further, she disclosed that another proposal that had been floated was for the households to pay P30 for every 10 kilos of unsegregated waste but most of the respondents preferred the first option.
The SLU professor claimed that the local government could base the mechanisms that will be put in place on existing models that are already being enforced by other institutions which had been proven to be effective.
In the case of Angeles City, Pampanga, she stipulated that hotels are collecting P20 per day from their guests as environmental fee where the local government tapped the hotels to serve as its collection mechanism to ensure that it will be able to collect the same from visitors.
According to her, the same could also be replicated in the city aside from the fact that the schools could also be used as collection mechanism to collect similar fees from students enrolled in the different higher education institutions which will be used to help in providing the funds needed to effectively and efficiently address the city’s garbage disposal woes.
However, she admitted that based on the comments of the respondents, the privatization of the city’s solid waste management is not an option although the available alternatives will be the proposed community-based solid waste management system and the complimented solid waste management system.
Navarro presented to city officials the cohost-benefit analysis of the 3 possible options on how to address the city’s solid waste management problems as part of the ongoing study on what will be the best step that will be undertaken to solve the said major concern that had resulted in the billions of pesos in expenditures over the past several years just to prevent the occurrence of a serious garbage problem for the city.
She underscored that residents are lucky because of the presence of the benevolent government that heavily invested to find appropriate solutions to the garbage disposal problems of a rapidly increasing population, thus, the need for them to also contribute on the doable ways that will address the said major concern to ensure the protection of the environment.
The results of the study will be provided the local government to serve as one of the basis in guiding city officials on whatever future actions to undertake to come up with a permanent solution to the city’s garbage disposal and collection problems that had existed for over a decade now.
