“Extracting …fuel products from the dump is more sustainable and eco-friendly than simply incinerating them to generate electricity.”
Renewable energy has long been a global buzzword amid calls for cleaner fuel and climate change warnings. Nations across the globe espouse this option but tapping unconventional sources of energy may also do harm than good―if not weighed carefully.
One way of producing energy and rejecting fossil-based fuels is dumping trash into a landfill and burning or incinerating the piles of garbage to generate electricity. Producing power from this renewable option, or waste-to-energy (WTE), became popular in many countries. It provided a solution to deal with garbage problems, especially in heavily populated nations like China, and cut down their imports of fossil-based fuels.
Over time, however, the renewable form of energy created new problems. Incinerating trash produce pollution and emit particulates that dirty the atmosphere.
It destroyed materials that could have been recycled and discouraged more sustainable waste management solutions and other renewable energy sources.
It worsens urban air pollution, contaminated the groundwater and poses health risks to communities near the dumpsite. The landfill and its incinerator ironically released carbon into the air and would shortly contribute to global warming.
The popularity of WTE, despite its environmental risks, relegated the waste-to-fuel (WTF) option to the background, instead of being given the attention it deserves.
Landfills, per se, are not bad. Local government units have to store and dump solid and industrial wastes, hazardous chemicals and green discards. But disposing them through incineration to generate electricity produces pollutants that poison the atmosphere and the air breathed by nearby residents.
The WTF, meanwhile, offers a more sustainable renewable energy source. Instead of burning the trash, the WTE can process and collect liquid fuels, such as ethanol, methane and aviation gas, through materials recovery facilities. Extracting these fuel products from the dump is more sustainable and eco-friendly than simply incinerating them to generate electricity.
A bill is already pending at the Senate that will institutionalize WTE, although seems to have overlooked the WTF. Evidence suggests the WTF is a much safer, cleaner way to convert garbage dumps into a repository of fuel sources.
The shift to WTF and away from the WTE promises to be a game changer once our lawmakers realize the advantages of the latter. It would require a more comprehensive legislation to jumpstart the WTE industry.
The law must first straighten the maze of bureaucracy that involves at least three government departments―Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Energy and Department of the Interior and Local Government.
We should learn from from the experience of other nations and take a more circumspect look at the WTE system.
The direct use of burning trash to feed power generators is laden with complexities other than the amount of poison it releases into the air.
Scientific evidence suggests that directly feeding power generators with burning trash will not solve runaway waste and expensive energy. Instead, it will just add a bigger problem―toxicity.
The WTF alternative will help address this main concern about WTE and the process it takes to turn wastes into energy.
Investing in a WTF facility will require a big sum of money―it is a new technology after all. It would take more than tax breaks or holidays to entice investments into the WTF, an entirely new enterprise that will take years to mature.
In many countries, using waste as fuel for energy has won government guarantees because like a newly-born born child, the industry needs motherly hands to keep its first steps steady. The experience of India and Thailand, among several countries with working WTF industries, can serve as business models for the infant industry.
The Philippines has already taken the first step in a potentially game-changing WTF industry through the National Ecological Solid Waste Management Act. But implementing the law has proven to be a daunting, often impossible, task.
Local governments, for one, cannot catch up with the requirement to build waste management infrastructure due to lack of funds.
But the WTE offers a sustainable solution to fossil-based fuels and is more friendly to the environment. It could also be a way out from the imperfections of the WTE and redesign the Philippines this early to a zero landfill landscape.
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