Cebu City Legislator to Hold Monthly Environmental Fun Runs

A Cebu City legislator is set to hold monthly environmental fun runs for students to strengthen the cleanliness drive in the city.

Councilor Joel Garganera said he and a group of runners will conduct a school-to-school campaign to encourage students to join his monthly environmental fun run.

Garganera along with 70 other participants, some of them members of the Philippine Army, conducted their 5th Run Basura Run Activity on Saturday.

For the past four months, the participants collected trash in canals, alleys and gutters along the way.

But on Saturday, they wore masks as they toured the streets of Mabini, Colon, Barangay Pari-an and the areas around Arellano Blvd.

“The difference now is that we’re wearing masks as a sign of protest to the stench and continued operation of the landfill in Barangay Inayawan, despite having 13 violations,” Garganera said.

Department of Environment and Natural Resources 7 Environmental Management Bureau Director Engr. William Cuñado earlier said the city violated several conditions, including its failure to address the complaints from residents about the stench from the landfill.

The city also failed to put a layer of soil over the waste that has been disposed and compacted in the landfill.

It also failed to spray insecticide on the disposed waste at the landfill, which allowed flies to converge there.

Cuñado also called the city’s attention for failing to secure a discharge permit that would allow them to determine if the effluents coming from waste are within environmental standards.

Garganera, who chairs the committee on environment, said other than fighting for the closure of the landfill, he wants to inculcate in the minds of the young the importance of cleanliness.

“I want to make caring for the environment a daily habit among our kids. Even if it is as simple as picking up trash, it can already create a big difference,” he said. (PNA) SCS/EB/RSM