DAVAO CITY—The country’s tuna capital is now using a new P219-million sanitary landfill, that is believed to be Mindanao’s biggest.
The city government announced that the landfill began accepting garbage from the city’s households and industries after it was inaugurated on May 2.
The former garbage dump in Barangay Tambler was earlier closed. The current dump is located in the outskirts of barangay Sinawal. It has an area of 63.3 hectares. The city information office has claimed that at its size, it would be the biggest in Mindanao, and that General Santos is only one of the few cities with a sanitary landfill.
The use of the landfill complies with the order of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued in 2010 that the city should construct its own sanitary landfill, as mandated by the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.
Mayor Ronnel Rivera said the cost of the construction was a sharp reduction from the previous cost estimate that reached P325 million. A Manila-based contractor was tapped to build the sanitary landfill.
The city is already planning the expansion of the dump.
An ordinance that laid out the city’s 10-year Ecological Solid Waste Management Plan was earlier passed by the Sangguniang Panglunsod.
In 2014 the World Bank granted P4.46 million to the Mindanao State University-General Santos City and Solid Waste Management Association of the Philippines Inc. for a project study on solid-waste management, which included the livelihood benefits to residents depending on the garbage poured into the previous dump.