Villagers slam stench from trash dump

THESE accumulated garbage turn Angeles City’s materials recovery facility into an open dump. JUN MALIG / Inquirer Central Luzon

ANGELES CITY–Residents of Pampang village here have been complaining of stench from some 12,000 metric tons of garbage that had accumulated at the local government’s materials recovery facility (MRF) near the city’s market, hospital and schools.

City Administrator Dennis Albert Pamintuan admitted that garbage has been accumulating at the city engineer’s compound in Pampang since the city’s contract with private garbage hauling company International Swims Corp. expired in October last year.

International Swims Corp. is the operator of the Rizal provincial sanitary landfill (formerly called Montalban landfill).

“The garbage mounted in the MRF because our contract with the garbage hauler expired last October and the daily 120 MT of garbage was increased to 190 MT in November and December, probably because of the holidays,” Pamintuan said.

The city’s MRF is located beside the Pampang public market and less than 500 meters from the Ospital Ning Angeles, Angeles City High School and City College of Angeles.

“The smell from the garbage is unbearable. We cannot eat because of the stench from the piles of garbage that the city government continues to dump in our village,” said former village councilman Dexter Dimalanta.

“Everybody is complaining, especially the elderly and children. The odor penetrates even the rooms of our houses and garbage continues to increase every day,” he said.

Pamintuan said the city government would renew its contract with International Swims Corp. in the coming days to solve the garbage accumulation problem at the MRF.

“The city had to request for the release of supplemental budget of P10 million to P15 million for garbage disposal and the contract with the hauler is set to be signed soon. By the first week of February, the garbage that accumulated in the MRF in Pampang will be gone,” he said.

He said the garbage problem was a result of the sudden increase in the volume of trash in the last quarter of 2013. He said the 12-month budget for garbage disposal was used up within nine months because of additional financial requirements for waste disposal.

Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan said he had mobilized additional hauling trucks, backhoes and loaders on Wednesday to bring some of the garbage to a sanitary landfill.

“We are working overtime now in getting rid of the accumulated trash. The collected trash climbed to 130 to 140 MT per day and went up further in the last week of November and the whole month of December,” he said.

The city government chose to dump wastes in the Rizal sanitary landfill and not in the Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. (MCWMC) sanitary landfill in Capas town in Tarlac province “because it’s cheaper to the hauler,” he said.

This city used to bring its garbage to Capas after Pamintuan convinced the MCWMC to lower its tipping fee from P1,000 to only P500 per ton of garbage.

But the city government later contracted International Swims Corp. for disposal of garbage to the sanitary landfill being operated by the company in Rizal.