The Payatas dumpsite, also known as the Payatas Controlled Disposal Facility (PCDF), is a former

garbage dump A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...

in the

barangay The barangay (; abbreviated as Brgy. or Bgy.), historically referred to as ''barrio'', is the smallest Administrative divisions of the Philippines, administrative division in the Philippines. Named after the Precolonial barangay, precolonial po ...

of the same name in

Quezon City Quezon City (, ; ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read and pronounced in Filipino language, Filipino as Kyusi), is the richest and List of cities in the Philippines, most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 c ...

Metro Manila Metropolitan Manila ( ), commonly shortened to Metro Manila and formally the National Capital Region (NCR; ), is the capital region and largest List of metropolitan areas in the Philippines, metropolitan area of the Philippines. Located ...

, the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. Originally established in the 1970s, the former open dumpsite was home to scavengers who migrated to the area after the closure of the

Smokey Mountain Smokey Mountain was a large landfill once located in Tondo, Manila. History Smokey Mountain operated for at least 50 years, consisting of over two million metric tons of waste. The flammable substances in decomposing waste led to fires that r ...

landfill in

Tondo, Manila Tondo is a district located in Manila, Philippines. It is the largest, in terms of area and population, of Manila's sixteen districts, with a census-estimated 654,220 people in 2020. It consists of two congressional districts. It is also the se ...

. After the

Payatas landslide The Payatas landslide was a garbage dump collapse at Payatas, Quezon City, Philippines, on July 10, 2000. A large pile of garbage first collapsed and then went up in flames which resulted in the destruction of about 100 houses. Background The r ...

happened in 2000, the newly passed Ecological Solid Waste Management Act mandated the closure of open and controlled dumpsites. The dumpsite was reorganized into a controlled disposal facility in 2004 and was permanently closed in 2017. The former dumpsite is currently being redeveloped into an urban park for cycling activities.

History

The dumpsite was established in the 1970s, as an open dumpsite in Lupang Pangako in

Payatas Payatas is an administrative division in eastern Metro Manila, the Philippines. It is an urban barangay located in the 2nd district of Quezon City adjacent to the barangays of Commonwealth, Batasan Hills and Bagong Silangan. Etymology The ...

. Prior to this, the area used to be a

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ...

surrounded by farming villages and rice paddies. People residing in the

landfill in

who worked as scavengers migrated to the Payatas dumpsite after the former's closure in 1995. Payatas then developed a reputation as the ''"second Smokey Mountain"'', ''"21st century Smokey Mountain"'', ''"Smokey Mountain Two"'', ''"New Smokey Mountain"'', ''"Smokey Valley"'', or the ''"modern-day Smokey Mountain"''. On July 10, 2000, the

caused the deaths of 232 people residing within the landfill, which prompted the passage of Republic Act No. 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, which mandated the closure of open dumpsites by 2001 and controlled dumpsites by 2006. The dumping ground was immediately closed following the incident by then-President

Joseph Estrada Joseph Ejercito Estrada (; born Jose Marcelo Ejercito; April 19, 1937), also known by the nickname Erap, is a Filipino politician and former actor, who served as the 13th president of the Philippines from 1998 until his resignation in 2001. ...

, but was reopened weeks later by then-Quezon City Mayor Mel Mathay to avert an epidemic in the city due to uncollected garbage caused by the closure. In 2000, a geologist from the

University of the Philippines The University of the Philippines (UP; ) is a Higher education in the Philippines#State universities and colleges, state university system in the Philippines. It is the country's national university, as mandated by List of Philippine laws, Re ...

raised that there might be a possible leakage of

leachate A leachate is any liquid that, in the course of passing through matter, extracts soluble or suspended solids, or any other component of the material through which it has passed. Leachate is a widely used term in the environmental sciences wh ...

from the dumpsite to the

La Mesa Dam and Reservoir The La Mesa Dam and Reservoir is an earth dam that impounds the Tullahan River in Quezon City, Philippines. Its reservoir can hold up to , occupying an area of . It is part of the Angat- Ipo-La Mesa water system, which supplies most of the ...

. The dumpsite is located less than from the reservoir itself. In 2004, the landfill was reorganized as a controlled disposal facility and was closed in December 2010. A separate landfill with a stricter waste management policy was established nearby the old open dumpsite in January 2011. Garbage in the dumpsite was dumped on a layer of tarpaulin to prevent seepage of

to the groundwater. This dumpsite was permanently closed in December 2017 following an order issued by the DENR Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) on August 2, 2017, so that it could review the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) of IPM Environmental Services, the operator of the dumpsite. In January 2020, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court ordered the government of Quezon City to pay more than 6 million pesos to the relatives of the 2000 Payatas landslide victims. In March 2023, the former dumpsite was redeveloped into an

urban park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a city park, municipal park (North America), public park, public open space, or municipal gardens (United Kingdom, UK), is a park or botanical garden in cities, densely populated suburbia and oth ...

for

cycling Cycling, also known as bicycling or biking, is the activity of riding a bicycle or other types of pedal-driven human-powered vehicles such as balance bikes, unicycles, tricycles, and quadricycles. Cycling is practised around the world fo ...

activities.

References

{{Authority control Landfills in the Philippines History of Quezon City Former squats Squatting in the Philippines

History

See also

References