Waste service woes highlighted

By GLORIA BAUAI
ABOUT 75 per cent of Madang’s urban population does not have access to local municipal waste services, an official says.
Elias Williams, research officer from the governor’s office, said Water PNG’s sewerage system only catered for the provincial government, the Modilon General Hospital and parts of wards six and seven.
Williams said garbage collection only reached five of the 10 wards in the Madang urban local level government.
“But when it comes to waste management, it’s the 75 per cent that contribute a lot of waste and it’s giving a bigger challenge,” he said.
“Wastes from institutions, hotels, shops and various residences and Zones one to seven are not managed by Water PNG, even though the main sewerage plant can cater for all 10 wards.
“People do their own septic and when it fills up, they call for it to be removed through sludge and that’s very unhealthy – this also leads to sewerage overflows.”
Williams said garbage was supposed to be collected by the Madang urban authority but they did not have the capacity to do the job.
He highlighted socio-economic growth and population explosion, lack of collective approach from authorities and poor funding support as reasons for the decline in waste management.
Williams suggested that one way of managing the problem was controlling the growth of settlements which tended to place pressure on the municipal government in terms of catering for unplanned and unregulated development.
He said Madang town also needed two more municipal rubbish dumps.
“Yabob is closed and Meiro is also filled, but the landowners want money,” he said.