On April 15, the proposed Waste-to-Energy (WtE) incineration project in Davao City will undergo a public scoping session at the gymnasium of barangay Biao Escuela. This event will be conducted in collaboration with the Environmental Management Bureau from the regional office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
The public scoping represents an initial phase in the Environmental Impact Assessment process, during which the project proponent intends to offer a comprehensive overview of the proposed initiative, outline the intended actions, collect issues and concerns, and gather other pertinent information to define the scope of work and establish the terms of reference for the preparation of the Environmental Impact Statement.
Notwithstanding the good intentions behind the public scoping, the Interfacing Development Interventions for Sustainability (IDIS) remains steadfast in its opposition to the project. It persistently expresses concerns regarding the project’s compatibility with waste management strategies that support the city’s objectives for a circular economy.
“The establishment of a WtE in Davao City runs counter to the city’s ongoing Circular Economy efforts, particularly those supported by European Union-Philippines partnerships that prioritize waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and resource efficiency,” IDIS said in a statement.
Davao City, a coastal highly urbanized city with a population of 1.8 million, produces around 600 to 900 tons of solid waste daily. The figure illustrates the city’s rising urbanization and consumption rates, resulting in a considerable waste generation issue.
In 2009, Romel V. Gador conducted an extensive study encompassing the 72 barangays located within the three districts of Davao City. The results of this research were later published in the Southeastern Philippines Journal of Research and Development.
The study indicated that food manufacturing was the leading industry in the region. The five most prevalent types of waste generated included plastics, paper, food scraps, kitchen waste, and metals. It was reported that the total weekly generation of organic and inorganic waste was under 5 tons.
“Davao City is big so we must control the waste generation,” said First District Councilor Temujin “Tek” Ocampo during a media briefing at The Royal Mandaya Hotel four years ago. “That garbage of ours at the edge of the sea will eventually disappear because it will be included there.”
Because of this, the WtE project comes into the scenario. “No one else has seen that would dramatically reduce the waste problem in Davao and if (WtE plant) is built, I believe that other cities will follow suit, especially Metro Manila, which generates a lot of waste,” said Ocampo, who is the chairperson of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.
Aside from Davao City, the other primary sites for these WtE initiatives are Metro Manila, Bacolod, Cebu, and Cagayan de Oro City. These initiatives are integral to the strategy of the Department of Energy to shift towards more sustainable energy alternatives and tackle the challenges of urban waste management.
The construction of WtE is seen to be the immediate possible solution to the enormous garbage problem. WtE, a form of energy recovery, is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from the primary treatment of waste, or the processing of waste into a fuel source.
“Waste-to-energy plants burn municipal solid waste (MSW), often called garbage or trash, to produce steam in a boiler, and the steam is used to power an electric generator turbine,” the US Energy Information Administration explains.
MSW is a mixture of energy-rich materials such as paper, plastics, yard waste, and products made from wood. In the United States, for every 45 kilograms of MSW, about 38 kilograms can be burned as fuel to generate electricity. Waste-to-energy plants reduce 907 kilograms of garbage to ash that weighs between 136 kilograms and 272 kilograms, and they reduce the volume of waste by about 87%.
Now, if the world will have the “business-as-usual” scenario when it comes to garbage, “we can expect global waste production to increase to 6 million tons per day by 2025, and by the end of the century, we could witness a whopping 11 million tons of waste generation per day,” said Brian Nana-Sinkam in a paper submitted to Stanford University.
Nana-Sinkam based his statistics from the 2016 report of the World Energy Council. In order for the scenario not to happen, he suggested the adoption of WtE. “Although WtE only holds a minimal 6% of the global waste management market, its growth will boost contribution in the fight against the impending increase in waste generation,” he said.
When comparing WtE with fossil fuels in terms of economic and emission performance, Grace P. Sapuay, the President of the Solid Waste Management Association of the Philippines, told S&T Post: “There are technologies with environmental caps so that—unlike fossil fuels, for example—they contain high emissions. Singapore uses incineration technology, but not many emissions were seen.
“In terms of the economy, of course, fossil fuels are cheaper, but what can we do if the people are adopting the ‘throw-away approach?’ We have to have waste-to-energy technology in the Philippines,” Sapuay added.
Former Environment Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga said the country produces at least 61,000 million metric tons of solid waste each day, a volume sufficient to fill nearly 37 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
About 24% of this garbage is plastic waste. Some 48 million shopping bags, 45 million thin-film bags, and 163 million plastic sachet packets make up this daily buildup of garbage. Remarkably, only around one-third of this garbage makes it to landfills or other disposal sites, with an estimated 35% ending up in the ocean.
“We are not winning the war against single-use plastics,” Loyzaga said at a news conference during the World Environment Day some years back.
Those single-use plastics that end up in the ocean are most likely to break down and become microplastics. Earthday.org contends there are now 24 trillion pieces of microplastics floating in the ocean. Most of these microplastics are eaten by marine animals, including fish.
“While microplastics themselves may not be inherently toxic, their chemical nature allows them to attract and accumulate other toxic substances on their surfaces. When microplastics with attached toxic substances are ingested, they pose a potential threat to human health,” said Marybeth Hope Banda, member of the research team who conducted the study.
Plastics likewise threaten wildlife creatures living in the oceans. Wildlife becomes entangled in plastic, they eat it or mistake it for food and feed it to their young, and it is found littered in even extremely remote areas of the Earth.
“Marine plastic pollution has impacted at least 267 species worldwide, including 86% of all sea turtle species, 44% of all seabird species and 43% of all marine mammal species,” Clean Water Organization notes. “The impacts include fatalities as a result of ingestion, starvation, suffocation, infection, drowning, and entanglement.”
The solid waste management in the country is addressed through the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (RA 9003). This law emphasizes practices such as segregation, proper disposal, recycling, and waste diversion.
Unfortunately, only 28% of the country’s plastic garbage is recycled, according to Jonas Leones, Environment Undersecretary for Policy, Planning, and International Affairs. At least 800,000 metric tons of plastics are disposed of each year.
“Majority of the material value of plastics is lost to the Philippine economy,” Leones was quoted as saying.
