Manila City Mayor Joseph E. Estrada has ordered concerned City Hall departments to strictly implement all policies against improper garbage disposal, particularly the 1994 anti-littering ordinance.
According to Department of Public Services (DPS) Head Belle Borromeo, Manila produces more than 2,000 tons of garbage every day—most of which end up on the streets and in drainage pipes and waterways.
She said Districts 1 and 3 produce the highest volume of garbage on a daily basis. The city’s DPS collects 75 truckloads of garbage daily in District 3 alone.
Both districts have the biggest number of barangays that generate the bulk of waste, she added.
These include the communities in Divisoria, Quiapo, Binondo, San Nicolas, Santa Cruz, Moriones, Capulong Highway and Road 10 at the port area.
Engr. Che Borromeo, head of Manila Task Force Cleanup, revealed that the daily average volume of garbage gathered per district stands at 7,500 cubic meters.
District 1 collects 1,700 cubic meters; District 2, 750 cubic meters; District 3, 1,200 cubic meters; District 4, 1,000 cubic meters; District 5, 1,700 cubic meters; and District 6, 800 cubic meters.
“Given the volume of waste that we produce every day, I would urge you to help me clean the city of Manila,” Estrada said.
Garbage disposal has been a perennial global problem mainly due to increasing population.
Manila is one of the world’s most densely populated cities, with 42,857 people per square kilometer.
Tondo has the biggest population, accounting for 38 percent of the overall number of residents in the nation’s capital city.
It is followed by Sampaloc with a share of 20.7 percent; and Santa Ana, 10.7 percent.
With a population of 1.8 million, the percentage of daily population per district of Manila are District 1, 24 percent; District 2, 12 percent; District 3, 12 percent; District 4, 15 percent; District 5, 21 percent; and District 6, 17 percent.
Estrada said that, with the rapid population growth in Manila, one can just imagine the volume of garbage they can produce and generate.
Since cleaning up the city is a difficult task, the city mayor urged every Manileño to segregate their wet and dry waste in their homes so that garbage disposal could be done in a correct way.
“I ask all of us to cooperate. I alone cannot do this. We need to help one another if we want immediate results,” Estrada stressed.