LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET?Save for Baguio City, waste generated by the rest of the Cordillera is yet to reach alarming levels but environment officials said this is not an excuse to relax the implementation of waste reduction measures to keep the environment clean.

Officials of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) in the region said the emergence of fast urbanizing areas may change the picture in the next few years and this would demand drastic moves in waste management.

?If the region?s towns and provinces would not act now, they would find themselves facing a big problem in the future,? Paquito Moreno, EMB regional director, said.

Moreno said the region fared better compared with other areas in the country in terms of the volume of waste generated daily.

But this did not look good if viewed on a regional level, he said.

Based on records from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, only 62 of 1,175 villages in Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Kalinga, Ifugao and Mt. Province have materials recovery facilities (MRFs or recycling centers) or a compliance rate of only 5.27 percent.

Baguio City is worse. It only has three MRFs out of 128 villages, for a 2.3-percent compliance rate.

Moreno said the region still has 20 open and controlled dumps but it has yet to establish a fully operational engineered sanitary landfill.

The Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (Republic Act No. 9003) has directed local governments to close all open dumps, operate MRFs and build engineered sanitary landfills to treat wastes.

Only three towns in the region are in the process of completing their engineered sanitary landfills?Bangued in Abra, Alfonso Lista in Ifugao and this town.

But Moreno said the absence of landfills in most towns was due to the high cost of building the facility. The cost would depend on the landfill category required in relation to the volume of waste generated, he said.

?Most often, an engineered sanitary landfill required expensive clay lining or some measures to control leachate (untreated wastewater),? he said.

Moreno said the region?s garbage came mostly from residential areas and farms.

Household wastes could be taken to MRFs while agricultural wastes, like vegetable trimmings, could be composted, he said.

But many areas are urbanizing and this could alter the volume of agricultural and residential wastes, he said. Delmar Cariño, Inquirer Northern Luzon