Brace for toxic waste crisis, firms warn amid dump closure

DUMPING GROUND A drone shot on Monday shows dump trucks lining up to unload garbage at Metro Clark Waste Management Corp.’s engineered sanitary landfill inside New Clark City in Sitio Kalangitan, Barangay Cutcut II, Capas, Tarlac. —Contributed photo

CAPAS, TARLAC, Philippines — Companies involved in the treatment, storage, and transport of hazardous waste have raised an alarm about a potential crisis if the engineered Kalatingan sanitary landfill located in a 100-hectare area within New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac, is closed before the end of this month.

Representatives from two waste management firms voiced their concerns during a video conference organized by landfill owner Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. (MCWMC) on Monday with invited local officials and journalists brought to the landfill site.

April Dianne Rivera, operations manager, and Florence Alberto, marketing and transport manager of Dolomatrix Philippines Inc., a Pasig City-based firm, emphasized that MCWMC’s landfill is the only facility equipped to handle the 250 to 400 metric tons of hazardous waste they collect monthly from various industrial and manufacturing companies across the country.

READ: Closure of Tarlac landfill halted for 72 hours

They noted that without access to the MCWMC landfill, they would be forced to store treated hazardous waste for longer periods and construct larger storage facilities.

Benjie Razalan, general manager of Gulf Oil Petroleum Products, a registered hazardous waste treatment and storage facility based in Bulacan, echoed the same concern.

“We are clients of Metro Clark (MCWMC) and dispose of hazardous waste through them. Given the nature of the waste we handle, only Metro Clark has the capacity and capability to accept it. If it shuts down, I don’t know where we would take it,” Razalan said, noting that the waste includes large nonhazardous materials that require 12-meter (40-foot) vans for transportation to disposal sites.

The Inquirer reached out to Martin Jose Despi, director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) Central Luzon, for comment regarding the concerns raised by the two companies but had not received a response.

Request letter

But according to the EMB Central Luzon Records Unit, a signed request letter detailing the groups’ concerns is necessary to get a response, as part of the agency’s standard operating procedure.

Environmental officers from the City of San Fernando in Pampanga, Tarlac City, and Bamban and Capas towns in Tarlac also participated in the video conference, expressing hope the landfill would continue operations until the end of the year.

They explained that their annual budgets for waste disposal through December only cover the current tipping and related fees charged by MCWMC, and contracting other waste disposal companies would require additional funding.

Clark Development Corp. (CDC), which operates New Clark City, had wanted to shut down the MCWMC landfill on Oct. 6, at the expiration of its 25-year service contract with the government. But MCWMC was able to secure a temporary restraining order from a Capas court first for 72 hours that was later extended to 18 more days, or until Oct. 24.

CDC, a subsidiary of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), wanted to regain control of the landfill site as the BCDA planned to develop it into an economic enterprise area.