PH’s first composting facility to start opn in Legazpi

By Cet Dematera

The first composting facilities that will produce organic fertilizer in the Philippines is set to start its pilot operations in Legazpi City this March after its formal blessings and inauguration on Friday, Mar. 5.

Legazpi City Mayor Noel Rosal said that the composting equipment were handed over to the city government earlier but the other facilities were already completed.

Rosal said that the composting facilities located inside a 1,000 square meter space was funded by a P20-million assistance by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) through OKADA Philippines.

The Legazpi City Composting Facility located inside the Legazpi City Sanitary Landfill in Barangay Banquerohan. (photo by Cet Dematera)

He said that the composting facility is the first in the country that is using Japanese technology.

Rosal said that the facility could produce at least 10 tons of organic fertilizer in a day out of the 50 metric tons of biodegradable materials source from the 150 to 200 metric tons of garbage being collected daily across the city.

He said that the facility would help the farmers in their need for organic fertilizers once the composting facility operations become full-blast.

“These facilities will not only help the city in managing its garbage disposal, it will also answer the need of our farmers for cheap yet quality organic fertilizers,” Rosal told Bicol Mail.

Dr. Justino Arboleda, chief executive officer (CEO) of OKADA Philippines, who led the transfer of the facilities in the country, said that the composting machines would help the farmers increase daily income once they use the organic fertilizers.

“At present a farmer in our country is earning only 360 dollars per hectare a year. This is the lowest in Asia,” Arboleda said.

Arboleda said that with organic fertilizers used by the farmers, their income could increase by at least 20 percent.

He also said that the composting facilities would also help expand the life span of the Legazpi City’s sanitary landfill.

“With the biodegradable being processed into organic fertilizers, the life span of your sanitary landfill would be extended than without it,” Arboleda said.

Cicero Cano, chief of the Office of the City’s Environment and Natural Resources Officer (OCENR), said that the city government would be distributing for free the produced organic fertilizers during the pilot operations.

“We will do this in order to identify what types of fertilizers our farmers will be needing, depending on the plants being raised,” Cano explained.

He said that the produced fertilizers would also be offered to the farmers in the nearby provinces in Bicol.