DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 30 Aug) – Davao City’s 1st District Councilor Temujin “Tek” Ocampo said that “time is of the essence” in the implementation of the waste-to-energy (WTE) project he is proposing in light of the city’s rapid growth.
During an interview over Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR 87.5) on Tuesday, Ocampo said that the local government needs to push through with the construction of the WTE facility because the local government noted an increasing volume of garbage generated daily that comes with the exponential growth of the city.
He assured the locals that the operation of the planned WTE facility would be safe not only to the environment but also to the health of the public.
He said the city could not just open another landfill once the existing dumpsite in Barangay New Carmen reaches its maximum limit.
He said the construction of a WTE does not mean excluding other ways of managing the solid wastes such as segregation but it would form part of the strategies the local government would employ to address the problem.
On the concerns of environmental groups, Ocampo added that the “First World countries” like Japan and Singapore have utilized a similar facility to address solid waste, claiming that WTE does not pose environmental and health hazards to their people.
He said the city generates 600 to 800 tons of wastes daily, which would be more than enough to fill up to the brim the new sanitary landfill located just beside the existing dumpsite in five years’ time.
“They were saying that it’s better if we compost the biodegradable wastes. The city is doing that. Barangays are encouraged to do composting. However, the volume of our wastes is so huge. Where are we going to do that? It’s not that if we compost now, we can use it tomorrow immediately. It will take days or weeks,” he said.
He said local officials visited Kitakyushu, a sister city of Davao in the Fukuoka Prefecture, to study the WTE which is being operated in the middle of the Japanese city.
Save for the budget, Ocampo said that everything is already set for the implementation of the WTE facility, including the site in Biao Escuela in Tugbok District.
Once established, he said the proposed facility could generate 10 megawatts of power which could earn the city around P1.5 billion annually.
He said the local council is hoping President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. would support the initiative and set aside a counterpart fund worth P3.486 billion to get the implementation started.
Environmental groups opposed the plan of the local government to pursue the project.
Mark Peñalver, executive director of the Interfacing Development Interventions for Sustainability (IDIS), said that incinerators are being fed with plastic or non-biodegradable wastes as fuel to vaporize water in a boiler, creating high-pressure steam to produce electricity.
“However, this process results in the emission of highly toxic substances like dioxins and furans, which are known carcinogenic and can also cause reproductive and developmental problems, among others,” he said.
Peñalver said biodegradable wastes comprise 80 percent of the city’s wastes.
“According to the recent assessment, biodegradable wastes are mostly generated from residences and commercial establishments. Biodegradable wastes can be treated and reduced without burning or incineration processes,” he said.
Peñalver said that the WTE-incinerator facility is a “waste of money” and addresses the wrong issue which is failure to strictly implement Republic Act 9003, which mandates proper waste segregation. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)