The city government of Baguio continues to dump fresh garbage at the Irisan dumpsite, claiming it has 10 days or until Feb. 2 to file a motion of clarification on a Supreme Court en banc order stopping the use of the facility either as a staging or storage area.

On Thursday, two city-owned dump trucks were documented in a series of photographs to have dumped newly collected wastes in a span of 50 minutes, between 10 a.m and 10:47 a.m.

After the wastes were dumped, authorized waste pickers were allowed to salvage recyclable and reusable wastes before a backhoe spread the dumped garbage. Some of the dumped wastes are reportedly hauled out outside of Baguio during nighttime.

On Wednesday’s press forum, Mayor Mauricio Domogan said that only the two environmental recycling system (ERS) machines set up within the Irisan dump facility are being used. He added the city will no longer use the dump facility either as storage or staging area as ordered by SC.

Domogan’s statement came in wake of the SC Writ of Kalikasan order with Temporary Environmental Protection Order (TEPO) which directed the city to cease and desist from using the Irisan dump facility either as a storage or staging area.

The city government officially received the SC order on Jan. 24 and it has until Feb. 2 to file a motion or clarification.

The petition was filed last month in wake of the avalanche of garbage that cascaded to Tuba killing six people, including children, at the height of Typhoon Mina on Aug. 27, 2011.

Some sources, meanwhile, have different interpretations of the SC’s order, with most of them claiming that allowing dump trucks to enter Irisan dumpsite to bring in biodegradable wastes to be processed by the two ERS machines is in violation of the SC order.

Prior to the SC order, the city government through ProTech, the private company tapped to do the collection and hauling of wastes, has been using the Irisan dumpsite as staging area for solid wastes.

Because of the SC prohibition, the mayor said that three materials recovery facilities (MRFs) located at City Camp, Lourdes Extension, and Lualhati barangays could be used as staging areas.

“Protech will do the collection in these areas so no non-biodegradable wastes will be brought to Irisan,” the mayor added.

The problem with the MRF at Lualhati barangay is its proximity to the Wright Park Bridle Path, one of the tourist attractions in Baguio.

To lessen the volume of wastes being collected from the more than 100 barangays, the mayor iterated his appeal to all residents to strictly comply with the “no segregation, no collection” policy of the city.