METRO CLARK Waste Management Corp. (MCWM) is still waiting for the government’s decision on its unsolicited proposal to build a $210-million waste-to-energy facility in New Clark City.
“Waste to energy is not a power plant solution, in the first place it’s a waste management facility to reduce waste to try to utilize the most energy out of waste because there is no better way to get the energy out than generating energy out of it,” MCWM Founder Holger Holst said in a briefing on Thursday in Quezon City.
“I don’t know what’s after 2050, but imagine, at the moment the Philippines has 100 million people, in 30 years it will be double, and that is the challenge for the future,” he told reporters after the briefing.
MCWM is partly owned by German conglomerates BN Ingenieure GmbH and Heers & Brockstedt Umwelttechnik GmBH. It has a 100-hectare landfill site in Sitio Kalangitan in Brgy. Cutcut II, Capas, Tarlac, which is part of the Sub Zone D of the Clark Economic Zone.
MCWM President and Chief Executive Officer Rufo B. Colayco said the company has submitted its unsolicited proposal to the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) last February.
Mr. Colayco said the BCDA asked for more information only a week ago. The company has to submit the additional information within a month.
Sought for comment, BCDA has yet respond to BusinessWorld as of press time.
The waste-to-energy facility is targeted to be completed in three years. Given the current situation and the long process that would involve a Swiss challenge, Mr. Colayco said that the company hopes to start construction of the facility by the middle of or late 2020.
With the growing population, the company projects by 2025 there will be 77,765 tons of garbage collected every day, coming only from cities.
Once completed, MCWM’s proposed waste-to-energy facility can process 2,000 tons which could generate 35 megawatts of electrical renewable energy for New Clark City. Currently, the landfill facility is receiving an average of 2,500 tons of waste from areas in Central Luzon. It is expecting higher waste collection this year versus about 700,000 tons it collected last year.
This will also reduce amount of residual waste disposed at the landfill by 70%, which can extend the lifespan of the solid waste management (SWM) system.
“… There are NGOs [nongovernment organizations] who will oppose anything, but as far as the government… they are all aware of this technology. It’s not an issue for them,” Mr. Colayco explained.
“We can only show what the problem is. Waste management will be a big problem in the future… It was not so in the minds of people, especially in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, very high populations. It’s getting bigger every day,” Mr. Holst said. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang
