The barangay-based waste-collection system of Panabo City is proving to be just sustainable until today after being used for the past 20 years.
“Compared to other cities where waste collection is done by the city governments, in our city each barangay collects its own waste while the city government only collects the waste in public markets, city roads, public plaza and government institutions,” Panabo City Environment Officer Engr. Felix Jonases Senajon said.
He said this system started during the time of Mayor Versim Enad in the late-1990s, when the barangays bought their own garbage trucks through a loan facilitated by the city government.
“Now, all our 40 barangays are still collecting their own waste and getting income from garbage fees,” he said.
All throughout, waste in the city collected daily reach to 40 tons to 50 tons. These are collected by two dump trucks and three compactors of the city government, and 24 dump trucks from various barangays.
The collected wastes are dumped on the city’s controlled dump site at Barangay Malitbog.
Meanwhile, Senajon also bared that the city continues to have no mining activities except quarrying in various sites in the Lasang River.
Panabo City is considered as the Cavendish banana capital of the Philippines owning mostly to the vast plantations of Tagum Agricultural Development Co., Inc. (Tadeco).
However, Tadeco’s larger areas have been petitioned for land reform by agrarian-reform beneficiary groups, while the joint venture agreement covering its 5,308 hectares leased from the Bureau of Corrections is in danger of going back to the government due to aggressive legal petitions of Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez.