Quezon City authorities warned local residents on Monday that they face deeper and continuous flooding, long standing stagnant water, ground water contamination, and deadly diseases if they continue to disregard the city’s waste segregation program.

Reports disclosed that Quezon City produces an average of 1.7 tons of household and industrial garbage daily with only around 33 percent of it being segregated and eventually recycled.

With the current waste disposal trend, the report said around 1.2 tons of discards are added to what goes to the dumpsites daily, which is equivalent to 36 tons monthly or 438 tons annually.

Quezon City Vice Mayor Herbert Bautista noted that the situation is very alarming, saying that the people’s indifference towards the program would ultimately have a negative ecological impact.

He stressed that the mountains of garbage can be reduced by half at least if only the households would be vigilant enough to practice waste segregation right in their own backyard.

The Quezon City government has vigorously campaigned for the waste segregation method separating recyclable and non-biodegradable refuse as a solution to solve the city’s garbage disposal woes.

Chairman Bayani Fernando of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) went a step further by employing the door-to-door garbage selection plan wherein members of the household are required to put their trash bags and containers out when the garbage collectors arrive at their doorsteps.

He noted that the MMDA’s garbage collection system complements the city’s waste segregation scheme as stray dogs, cats, and other animals will be unable to topple trash cans or scratch garbage bags that scatter the discards into the streets, inlets, uncovered manholes and drainage systems causing heavy flooding.

Bautista reiterated his appeal to local residents to make waste segregation a habit to save Quezon City from impending disaster caused by the steady rise in the volume of garbage.