The city government will pursue the privatization of waste collection but will not lay off the 98 city employees currently serving in the solid waste division, Mayor Mauricio Domogan announced on Wednesday.
The mayor said the city realized the advantages of allowing a private company to undertake the collection based on the on-going experiment that allowed Pro Tech Machinery Corporation (Pro Tech) to undertake the direct collection of wastes from the barangays.
The experiment which ran for one month last October was extended by the mayor until January 15 after helping improve the waste collection efficiency.
The mayor said the city is inclined to adopt the arrangement on a permanent basis leading to the privatization of the waste collection operations.
Support us by liking our facebook page
He however assured that the 98 employees serving as garbage collectors and drivers who will be affected by the privatization will not be displaced but will be retained by the city environment and parks management office or absorbed by other departments.
The mayor said Pro Tech also assured to hire waste pickers and sorters who were displaced by the direct collection scheme.
The mayor said the city will continue to improve its waste management program and will pursue the closure and rehabilitation of the Irisan controlled dump facility.
He said the proposed deal for the direct purchase of six new dump trucks from Korea is now with the city council for deliberation.
He said they are also continuing the search for a new location to serve as waste sorting and transfer site even as negotiations are also underway with other local governments for the use of their landfill facilities to dispose the city’s wastes.
He said the Environmental Recycling System (ERS) machines remain in good condition even as adjustments were made to control the moisture content of the by-product compost.
Domogan said the city has been granted a one-year provisional permit to sell fertilizers so it can start selling the ERS fertilizer that the city has accumulated since the machines began operating.
He said product samples from the output of the adjusted machines have been sent to a laboratory for testing.
Earlier tests of the initial outputs showed that the ERS products are of high grade quality but adjustments were needed to control the moisture content. - (Baguio City online news / By: Aileen Refuerzo)
Back to Home Page
0 comments:
Post a Comment