Color-coded trucks to ignore unsegregated wastes
The Iloilo City government starts today an intensified implementation of the “no waste segregation, no collection” policy.
All the 180 punong barangays in the city are expected to have informed their residents of the new garbage collection policy in compliance with Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.
The color-coded garbage trucks will collect the garbage in designated time and pick up areas of the barangay. Garbage that are unsegregated will not be picked up by the truck, said Engr. Raul Gallo of the Office of the Public Services (OPS).
Gallo said the yellow-colored truck will pick up the yellow plastic bag or garbage bag tied with yellow string. The yellow-colored plastic bag indicates that the wastes inside the garbage bag are non-biodegradable. The non-biodegradable waste includes plastics, aluminum foils and diapers.
The partially painted green-truck will pick up biodegradable wastes such as kitchen wastes and other wastes which could be used in composting purposes.
The color-coded garbage truck will also collect segregated garbage from the different Material Recovery Facilities (MRF). It can be observed, however, that not all of the 180 barangays have their own MRF.There are barangays which lack the area for MRF.
Gallo stressed that barangays that fail to comply with the waste segregation policy means there was a failure on the part of the barangay officials to inform their residents. The OPS has printed some 80,000 flyers regarding the waste segregation policy of the city government, he said.
The non-compliance on the part of the concerned barangays will result to non-collection of garbage which would eventually create foul smell.
Gallo added there are barangay officials who asked for a grace period before the full-implementation of the “no waste segregation, no collection” policy since they still have to conduct “pulong-pulong” in their barangays regarding the campaign.
The campaign can go on the scheduled date even if they have set the “pulong-pulong” prior to the implementation of the no “waste segregation, no collection” policy, said Gallo.
The city government revived the implementation of the waste segregation policy after the Global Legal Action on Climate Change (GLACC) filed a case against city officials for their failure to comply with the Solid Waste Management Act.