The city government here is strengthening its solid waste management initiative in barangays along the river and creeks by providing garbage collection equipment and installing waste traps.

General Services Office chief, engineer Neil Ravena, said Barangays Magsaysay, Ingore, Calahunan, San Rafael, and Bolilao received waste collection equipment and materials, particularly tricycles and push carts, from the Clean Cities Blue Ocean (CCBO) program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in a ceremony at the city hall on Monday.

“We have noted that our garbage collection trucks could not access some of their zones or far from our collection point. So they need tricycles or push carts to transport the garbage to their materials recovery facility,” Ravena said in an interview on Tuesday.

He said with the equipment, they look forward to improving collection and stopping the throwing of garbage into the bodies of water, particularly in Dungon Creek, which connects to the Iloilo River.

Ravena said the latest distribution raised to 18 the total number of barangays that have received the collection equipment.

The first batch of 13 villages received their provision in 2022 during the first phase of the CCBO program.

Next week, he said, they would start installing 13 waste traps along the Calahunan and Dungon creeks to determine the source of the garbage thrown into these bodies of water.

“We will call the attention of the barangay official once we identify the wastes that are trapped in our waste booms so they would know that they have residents who throw their garbage into the creek,” he said. (PNA)