Dagupan to clear beach dump to ease Lingayen Gulf pollution

DAGUPAN BEACH Tondaligan beach is a popular destination for residents and visitors of Dagupan City, one of the major business centers in Pangasinan province. But a section of the beachfront in Barangay Bonuan, facing Lingayen Gulf,has become an eyesore due to the city’s open dump. —WILLIE LOMIBAO

DAGUPAN CITY — This city in Pangasinan intends to haul out 50,000 tons of rotting garbage from its open dump next year, after discovering that leachate from decomposing waste has been polluting Lingayen Gulf.

According to Mayor Brian Lim, about a third of the dump is near the shoreline, but budget constraints prevent the city waste management team to immediately clear the area which has taken in 150,000 to 180,000 tons of garbage over the last 50 years.

Using part of its P57-million allocation for 2020, the city waste management unit “will remove the garbage that is nearest to the beach, as the seepage is slowly poisoning the sea and its resources,” Lim said.

The Dagupan government will commission private contractors to move the decaying garbage to a sanitary landfill.

Expensive

Each day, the city generates 60 tons of garbage which are shipped to the dump in the absence of a government-run sanitary landfill. Lim said plans were underway to reduce household waste through recycling and waste segregation.

Lim said developing sanitary landfills was too expensive for most local governments.

The mayor said Congress should amend the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (Republic Act No. 9003) and allow communities to share landfills or introduce appropriate waste processing technologies that serve towns and cities comprising congressional districts or the waste generated by an entire province.

The Dagupan government has committed to solve the city’s garbage crisis in a pledge that was submitted to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Trash to fuel

The previous city administration had a joint venture agreement with a company that offered to convert the garbage into diesel.

Lim said the city legal officer was studying the proposal because the technology had not yet been tested elsewhere in the country.

“We are studying the joint venture agreement. Will it be good for the city which committed to supply a certain volume of garbage that would be converted to diesel? What if we cannot provide the volume needed? Also, is there a facility for wastewater treatment? What about the air pollution it could create? If they pollute the environment, what would be their responsibility?” Lim said.