Cebu City solid waste board proposes system overhaul

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The city’s garbage is piling up faster than policies can manage it, and officials are saying it’s time to clean house, not just the streets.

The Cebu City Ecological Solid Waste Management Board (CCESWMB) formally urged the Cebu City Council to update and reform key ordinances on solid waste management.

In a letter dated April 28, it warned that outdated laws and fragmented systems were no longer enough to handle the worsening garbage crisis in the city.

The sweeping proposal includes nine major policy reforms, including the revision of ordinances passed as early as 1991 and the reframing of solid waste not merely as a public service concern but as a full-blown environmental emergency.

READ: Cebu City rivers: Household waste leading cause of pollution

“The city is facing mounting waste management challenges,” said Ma. Emma Ramas, alternate chairman of the board, in the letter to the City Council.

“With your support, Cebu City can serve as a model for innovative and effective urban environmental governance,” she added.

Among the key recommendations is the amendment of Ordinance 1361, a law enacted more than three decades ago, to reflect current waste volumes and behaviors while retaining provisions on household and institutional responsibility for cleanliness.

The board also seeks to strengthen the enforcement of the city’s “No Segregation, No Collection” policy under Ordinance 2031 by introducing a merit-demerit system for barangays based on compliance.

READ: Cebu City rivers severely polluted, Council pushes for septic tanks

Similarly, it proposed amending Ordinance 2343 to make the city’s Environmental Sustainability Action Plan mandatory rather than optional.

“The effectiveness of our waste policies depends on enforceability,” the letter read.

The proposals come just weeks after the Cebu City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CCENRO) released its 2025 River Assessment Report, which identified severe pollution in major waterways, primarily from household waste, including non-biodegradable sachets and untreated gray water.

Perhaps the most ambitious recommendation is the legal reframing of solid waste management as an environmental, not just service-related, concern.

The board is proposing the creation of a specialized city department that would unify all SWM-related functions—collection, education, enforcement, and data handling—under one office for efficiency and accountability.

“Consolidating SWM operations into a single command structure will enable faster decision-making, better monitoring, and more consistent public communication,” Ramas said.

READ: Can we ever rehabilitate the Pasig River?

The board also wants to institutionalize mandatory composting across households and businesses, while giving the option to outsource to accredited composting providers.

A similar approach is proposed for packaging waste: a deposit-return scheme for consumer goods to encourage recycling and promote a circular economy.

The CCESWMB is likewise pushing for environmental sustainability to be embedded into the city’s building and development approval process.

It recommends requiring developers of new buildings and subdivisions to integrate materials recovery and composting facilities in their designs, which the Office of the Building Official (OBO) and the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) would enforce.

To encourage participation at the grassroots level, the board proposes incentive programs for barangays that successfully implement waste diversion initiatives, and for private companies that launch sustainable waste innovations such as upcycling, waste processing, or segregated waste collection.

The urgency of these reforms is highlighted by the findings of the River Assessment Report, which revealed that Cebu City’s waterways—from Lahug and Mahiga to Guadalupe and Bulacao Rivers—are choked by household waste, particularly in densely populated barangays.

The report cited detergent sachets, fecal matter, gray water, and organic debris as common pollutants. In the Lahug River, trash from informal settlements lines the riverbanks; in the Mahiga River, domestic wastewater flows directly into the stream.

Although some upstream portions of rivers like Cotcot remain ecologically healthy, the report warns they are increasingly at risk due to poor downstream management and the lack of environmental education in nearby communities.

TAGS: Cebu City, proposals, solid waste management