The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has collected more than 200 cubic meters of garbage from various cemeteries in Metro Manila.
Based on the agency’s data released Monday, a total of 202.61 cubic meters or 57.95 tons of garbage were collected by the agency from October 29 to Nov. 3.
Every 200 cubic meter is equivalent to 9.5 truckloads of trash.
This despite the call of the Catholic Church and environmental groups to avoid littering during the All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day celebrations.
Data showed that the city that had the biggest volume of trash was Malabon. The Tugatog Cemetery in the city had accumulated a total of 96 cubic meters of garbage.
Francisco Martinez, Metro Parkway Clearing head, however said that only the city of Malabon had asked the help of the agency to collect trash from inside the cemeteries.
“Malabon’s local government was the only one who asked us to collect (trash) inside their cemetery,” Martinez said in a phone interview.
“Meanwhile, in other cities, we just collected garbage outside since they were the ones who gathered trash inside their cemeteries,” he added.
Despite the low number recorded by the MMDA, the Manila North Cemetery still recorded the highest number of trash collected from the same period, Martinez said.
MMDA data includes trash collected from 27 cemeteries in 15 cities and 1 municipality in Metro Manila. /ee
RELATED STORY: 61 truckloads of trash amassed from Manila cemeteries since October 30