The League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) told mayors of the country’s 1,500 towns to comply with Republic Act 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, or face sanctions from the charges which the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) may file when the six-month grace period ends this July.

In issuing a “reminder” to members, LMP National President Ramon Guico Jr. cited the urgent need to comply with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act by first covering all open dumpsites with soil and sealing such obsolete facilities with engineering safety structures if only to guarantee a halt to the environmental degradation caused by the outdated dumps.

By July this year, the DENR would start filing charges of negligence and non-compliance against 50 cities and municipalities that continue to operate open dumps despite a six-month grace period that was given to local government units nationwide to comply.

DENR Assistant Secretary Gerardo Calderon, concurrent executive director of the National Solid Waste Commission, said local governments should do away with the mentality of having their own landfill even as he took note of the FOURmula 1 – Zero Basura program of the DENR in partnership with the LMP.

“Zero waste is actually attainable if only we could adopt segregation, recycling and re-use. What the local government units should actually do is to reduce volume of garbage at source.

“Non-biodegradable waste would always have another use if manufactured and re-introduced into another product as what the Teresa (Rizal) local government unit does.

Biodegradable waste could be made as fertilizers,” Calderon said.

The DENR and the LMP have been closely working for a nationwide information and education campaign for compliance to RA 9003 through the FOURmula 1 - Zero Basura caravan.

Their first stop was the Cordillera Autonomous Region, where local chief executives made an “overwhelming acceptance and commitment to implement RA 9003”.

The DENR and the LMP are set to take on all the 14 regions nationwide within the next few months.

The caravan is "sequenced intensive, information, education campaign that will pass through provinces, cities and municipalities with the intent of cascading its key programs and strengthening DENR-LGUs partnership in solid waste management."

Guico and Calderon will supervise the program’s implementation in the LGUs. Calderon said his office has already devised a strategy that would harmonize the various local actions on environment management.