Alternative sanitary landfills

This is a sequel to my topic last week about the impending closure of the MCWM Sanitary landfill (SLF) in Kalangitan, Capas, Tarlac and a possible alternative, the Floridablanca Enviro Corporation (FEC) facility in Floridablanca, Pampanga. The FEC’s SLF is operational but limited to a maximum of 1,000 tons per day. They are still in the process of securing a permit to increase their daily capacity to 4,000 to 8,000 tons. They are not currently authorized to accept treated hazardous waste, but they claim to have an accredited facility to handle this.

During the meeting last week of the Metro Clark Advisory Council composed of Mayors of cities and municipalities around Clark, it was confirmed by Clark Development Corporation executives that Kalangitan SLF will indeed cease to operate this coming October. I asked Mayor Cris Garbo of Mabalacat City who was in that meeting for a possible alternative and he cited the facility in Porac Pampanga which I briefly mentioned in my previous column.

The said SLF in Porac is owned and managed by Eco Protect Management Corporation which has an office at Berthaphil Businesspark, Clark Ecozone. Their facility is in a 34-hectare area in Barangay Mancatian, just a third of the land area of MCWM. They are already operational and receives around a thousand tons of waste a day. They are authorized to handle up to 2,500 tons daily.

Like FEC, Eco Protect’s SLF still has no permit to accommodate treated hazardous waste. This is a concern for hospitals and industries as well as hazwaste treaters. They might spend more to bring the waste to an EMB-accredited facility in Metro Manila or Region 4.

As to their support facilities, the Porac SLF has a simple reed bed wastewater treatment system to treat leachate (katas ng basura). The system was developed and is currently operated by the Pampanga State Agricultural University. Eco Protec claims that it is compliant with DENR standards, and it even has no effluent discharge. Whether this will be sufficient when the volume of garbage increases remains to be seen. A category 4 SLF requires a combination of physical, chemical, and biological processes in treating leachate in compliance with DENR DAO No. 10, series of 2006.

The ability of FEC and Eco Protect to haul garbage in different locations simultaneously is still untested. They don’t have enough hooklift bins and trucks like what MCWM have. This will cause possible delays in garbage collection and additional hauling costs.

Those in Tarlac will feel the brunt of the closure of the Kalangitan SLF since there are no other private or government-owned facilities in the province. According to the website of the National Solid Waste Management Commission, there are three LGU-operated SLF’s in Bataan, one in Bulacan, two in Aurora, three in Nueva Ecija and four in Zambales. Tarlac only has the MCWM SLF.

The alternate SLF’s may not be as advanced as the MCWM SLF but they can fill in the gap for now. I hope that MCWM will continue to operate beyond October to allow for a smooth transition.