The Department of Environment and Natural Resources aims to put up sanitary landfills in each of the country’s 248 congressional districts to address solid waste management issues and achieve its “zero waste” goal.
In a press conference Wednesday, Environment Undersecretary Benny Antiporda said the DENR will push to include P7.2 billion for the landfills in the agency’s budget for 2021.
“One [sanitary landfill] per congressional district… P7.2 billion was not included in the 2020 [budget], hopefully in 2021 it will be included,” he said.
Antiporda said putting up a sanitary landfill in every district was important because the number of waste facilities in the country is “not enough,” but he admitted they are only a band-aid solution, as the desired waste-to-energy facilities are expensive.
“To really address the problem on solid waste, the DENR is calling for a concerted effort among local government units, lawmakers, and the public,” Antiporda said.
Meanwhile, the DENR is calling on local government units to slap stiffer fines against those who will fail to segregate their garbage.
“Our proposal to the local government units is we encourage them to come up with ordinances that give a minimum of P1,000 [fine] for those who will not segregate their solid waste,” Antiporda said. “We want people to feel the penalties so they can also ‘feel’ what they’re doing to the environment.”
The stiffer penalties to be imposed by LGUs will be on top of the P300 to P1,000 fine to be slapped against violators of the Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, he said.
Urging LGUs to come up with stiffer penalties in their local ordinances is a faster way to address the “culture of indiscipline” on waste disposal than amending the Republic Act. No. 9003 or the Solid Waste Management law, the DENR official said.
