Checkpoints set up to prevent transport of untreated hospital wastes

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) is setting up checkpoints along the North Luzon Expressway and the Manila North Road (MacArthur Highway) to prevent the transport of untreated hazardous wastes from hospitals in Metro Manila to a sanitary landfill in Tarlac.

The Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. (MCWMC) in Barangay Cutcut in Capas, Tarlac, is the only authorized facility in Luzon to store treated hospital wastes and other hazardous trash.

Lormelyn Claudio, director of the EMB in Central Luzon, said aside from the checkpoints, the agency is working on strengthening the multipartite monitoring team (MMT) of the MCWMC.

Based on an agreement from Tuesday’s technical conference, she said the EMB has also asked the Department of Health to monitor the operations of hospitals as generators of wastes.

Claudio said the EMB was pursuing these actions after Environment Secretary Ramon Paje suspended the permits of two companies found to have violated Republic Act No. 6969 (Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act of 1990).

Paje suspended the transport permits of Chevalier Enviro Services Inc. (Cesi) and the AEC Hauling Services for transporting and attempting to dump untreated medical wastes at MCWMC on Dec. 1, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources said in a statement.

Capas Mayor Antonio Rodriguez belittled the EMB’s proposal of strengthening the MMT because it “exists in name only.”

“The local government of Capas prefers that the Kalangitan landfill be closed because the company does not pay us taxes, which we can use in monitoring the activities there and for environmental protection,” Rodriguez told the Inquirer by telephone.

Kalangitan is part of Capas but it is also within the Clark Special Economic Zone (also known as Sacobia). Rodriguez invoked a provision in the bases conversion law that required Clark-based investors to give 2 percent of their gross income revenue earned to local governments.

Paje lauded the Capas police for blocking the two trucks, which contained eight tons of wastes. Cesi, on order of EMB, returned the wastes to Metro Manila. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon