Dumaguete mayor shuts incinerator for ECC violations
DUMAGUETE CITY—Dumaguete Mayor Manuel “Chiquiting” Sagarbarria has ordered the closure of the city’s pyrolysis machine at the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in barangay Candau-ay pending the processing of a permit to operate.
The mayor’s Memorandum Order No. 2, dated July 17, ordered the city’s Environment and Natural Resources Office (Enro) head engineer Chilvier Patrimonio to stop the operations of the pyrolysis, the plastic extruder, and the densifier effective immediately “until the necessary permit [to] operate is secured, and the units comply with all applicable environmental laws, rules, regulations, and prescribed standards.”
The memo stemmed from a letter from Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Central Visayas Regional Director Ma. Victoria Abrera dated July 14 informing Sagarbarria they found that the city failed to secure a permit to operate the pyrolysis, plastic extruder, and densifier, based on their inspection of the city’s waste-to-energy project.
Abrera directed the city to explain why it should not be fined P19,500 for the oversight, as it gave the city 60 days to secure the permit.
Violations
The pyrolysis machine became a center of controversy recently after a study found high levels of particulate matter five to eight times higher than the World Health Organization standards.
The pyrolysis plant, a process of decomposing materials using extreme heat in the absence of oxygen, was set up in 2021 by the administration of then Mayor Felipe Remollo, at a cost of about P22 million, to solve the problem of the proliferation of plastic materials in the city.
Sagarbarria said the other aspects of the operation of the MRF will continue after the DENR gave the city 60 days to address the seven violations of its environmental compliance certificate (ECC) that were noted during an inspection conducted on May 15.
The City MRF is part of an 8-hectare Eco-Park Solid Waste Processing Facility, which is also a recipient of the plastic-to-chair recycling equipment, glass pulverizer, bioshredder and biocomposters from the DENR.
Never an option
The violations consisted of failure to submit compliance monitoring report and self-monitoring report; failure to secure a memorandum of agreement with a DENR-accredited third-party treatment-storage-disposal facility; failure to comply with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act for dumping of unsegregated waste; improper housekeeping for operating like a dumpsite due to nonsegregation of wastes; failure to secure a discharge permit for the generated wastewater; expansion of project activities by constructing a second CRMF without amendment of the ECC; and failure to secure an identification registration as a “hazardous waste generator” for busted lamps, among others.
“Acquiring the pyrolysis should have never been an option to solve the city’s garbage program,” said Aidalyn Arabe, coconvenor of the Sustainable Environment Alliance for Negros Island, which has been at the forefront of protests against antienvironment initiatives in Dumaguete.
“A good father of a city would never put his constituency’s health at risk. The new city administration’s move gives us hope, and this will save us from a future of grave public health disaster,” she said.
Arabe urged residents to bring their own baskets and ecobags to stores and public markets to help minimize the use of plastic bags. “The target is to change people’s behavior [toward the use of plastics], and to make the bringing of our own bags a habit.”
Sagarbarria said the violations by the CMRF are serious. Patrimonio, the environment and natural resources division chief; Letty Duran, economic enterprise head and Dyannah Alexa Marie Ramacho, the new city legal officer met with the DENR last week in Cebu to discuss the violations.
