MAXIMUM YIELD TECHNOLOGY: Kalinigan Warriors to use pedicabs

By Jason B. Neola NAGA CITY --- The Solid Waste Management Office (SWMO) of the city government here will adopt an approach that will zero in on wastes dumped in areas where garbage trucks cannot access to gather them. The local government unit’s newest innovative waste collection project project, which was conceptualized by Mayor John G. Bongat, aims to rid waste in barangays with narrow side streets where only about 50 percent of the total garbage are effectively collected. Naga generates an average of 90 tons of garbage from households and commercial establishments every day. The new approach is also expected to help reduce the number of dengue cases in the city which the City Health Office now observes to be a whole year-round infectious disease. “We shall be utilizing pedicabs to be able to go through these narrow pathways and pick up the wastes accumulated near canals, small corners, vacant lots, household front and back yards, and in other areas which are not accessible by our large dump trucks,” says Engr. Joel Martin, head of SWMO. The program will employ pedicabs or padyaks designed and built exclusively for garbage collection in tiny and cramped areas. It will be the pedicabs that will transport the collected waste to the Materials Recovery Facilities operated by the barangays where they will be sorted out as recyclable materials. This system is under the maximum yield technology being introduced by the SWMO. Martin said it will be the Kalinigan Warriors and members of Barangay Environment Committee, upon the supervision of the barangay official in-charge, who are tasked to collect the garbage materials and submit them for recycling process. Maximum Yield Technology (MYT) is a new and innovative technology for treatment and recycling of residual household wastes like processing of debris that can be converted into construction materials. Post-barangay MRF garbage materials are to be disposed by garbage trucks to the city’s sanitary landfill. After last Monday’s flag ceremony at the City Hall compound, 14 pedicabs were distributed by Mayor Bongat to Barangays Bagumbayan Sur, Bagumbayan Norte, Dayangdang, Liboton, Tinago, Peñafrancia, San Francisco, Sta. Cruz, Sabang, Igualdad, Tabuco, Abella, Mabolo, and Triangulo. Thirteen more barangays are to receive their pedicabs within the first quarter of the year. The SWMO head said the project was initiated by Mayor Bongat along with the city’s barangay officials. He said that 8 of the 13 remaining barangays will be awarded with motorized pedicabs designed for upland barangays like Panicuason, Carolina, San Isidro, Pacol, and Del Rosario. Concepcion Pequeña, although not in the upper part of the city, will be provided with motorized pedicabs since the collection of garbage from its sitios and zones needs to be expeditious being the city’s biggest waste generator barangay that maintains sitios or zones that are not closely located to each other.