Metro Clark Waste Management studies expansion beyond Luzon

METRO CLARK Waste Management Corp., which developed the solid waste management system of the Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone, is looking to expand its operations beyond Luzon, a company official said.

“[The expansion] has to be economically sustainable, and we are looking into it and if this is possible,” Metro Clark Director for Technical Service Holger H. Holst told BusinessWorld in a recent online interview, when asked if the company intends to set up operations in Visayas and Mindanao.

“We’re looking at the market and what’s going on… in the LGUs (local government units). We’ll see what the future will bring, but we are looking forward to getting bigger and to serve more. There has to be a lot of things that have to be in place, and it’s not that easy,” Mr. Holst added.

Metro Clark said it operates the country’s first-ever ISO-certified engineered sanitary landfill facility in Sitio Kalangitan, Clark Special Economic Zone.

The company is also open to incorporating new technologies, such as waste-to-energy, into its operations.

“We are looking at all technologies available on the end of the chain, and waste-to-energy (WTE)… is really one way to reduce the volume of waste,” Mr. Holst said.

WTE facilities can be built anywhere in the country as long as they comply with the Environment department’s guidelines on developing such plants.

Metro Clark said six months ago that it was gearing up to build a $200-million waste-to-power “secondary fuel power plant” to help boost waste disposal capacity in Central Luzon.

The planned facility is expected to serve the waste management requirements of local government units and industrial clients in Region III while producing up to 35 megawatts of power that can be fed back into the region’s distribution grid.

The project, which will be built on the company’s 100-hectare site in the Clark Economic Zone, is the company’s joint venture project with Plambeck-Emirates Global Renewable Energy LLC, a partnership between a German technology firm and the Royal family of Abu Dhabi. — Angelica Y. Yang