MAASIN CITY (PIA) -- Southern Leyte Governor Damian Mercado on August 15, led the launching of a technology-driven composting facility that safely burns garbage generated out of hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare centers.

Officially called Thermal Decomposition System, the ribbon-cutting and the blessing was held at the facility’s plant site inside the compound of Salvacion Oppus Yniguez Memorial Provincial Hospital in Brgy. Dongon, attended by members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan headed by Vice Governor Rosa Emilia Mercado, city and municipal mayors, doctors, and medical personnel.

In his short talk, Mercado said the equipment was purchased by the provincial government in the amount of P20 million, so that proper disposal of hazardous hospital wastes all over the province can be dispatched without causing pollution to the environment or danger on the part of communities 

In a literature about the Thermal Decomposition System equipment read by Lyndo Calva, a medical staff at SOYMPH, it was learned that the facility uses a technology that physically and chemically decomposes hazardous wastes on ultra-high temperatures reaching up to 1,250 degrees centigrade.

The machine, which is approved by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources as eco-friendly, is capable of burning mixed residual wastes, rubber, sponge, styrofoam, textiles, used face masks, PPEs, gloves, infectious wastes, waste tires, waste engine oil, agricultural wastes, needles, syringe, sharp and other pointed objects.

It is an innovative solution to solve the waste buildup issue, said Vice Governor Mercado in her message.  (LDL/MMP/PIA Southern Leyte)