FOR ALL THE hype that the President has been bragging on the so-called waste-to-energy projects as the solution to the garbage crisis, many say its contribution to power supply would at best be only marginal.
“WTE can trim the volume of residual waste going to landfills, but that is the limit of its usefulness,” Noel M. Baga, co-convenor of think tank Center for Energy Research and Policy, told Business World.
“It manages waste after the fact rather than reducing it at the source, and its contribution to the power supply would be marginal,” he added.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in August said the country could begin seeing a waste-to-energy system by 2027, as the government seeks to address mounting garbage that is clogging drainage systems and worsening flood risks during heavy rains.
He said local government units would bring collected garbage to WTE facilities instead of landfills, which have reached beyond their holding capacities and are expensive to use.
Baga said the garbage clogging the waterways was a “failure of collection, segregation, and enforcement, not of disposal capacity.”
“Treating it as a flood solution only diverts attention from what actually works: better collection, drainage, and enforcement of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act,” he said.
Baga also raised concerns about the health risks posed by WTE facilities, as incineration-based ones release dioxins, furans, and other pollutants associated with respiratory and cardiovascular illness in nearby communities.
WTE refers to technologies that convert waste materials into usable energy, including electricity, heat, or fuel.
Baga said such projects should undergo independent health and environmental assessments, genuine consultation with host communities, strict and enforceable emissions standards based on the best available technology, and continuous, publicly accessible monitoring.
He added that these WTE facilities could undermine existing waste segregation and recycling efforts.
Another analyst, Gerry C. Arances, executive director of the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, said WTE facilities would not help reduce flooding as it could even incentivize the production and consumption of plastics under the belief that waste can simply be incinerated.
“In fact, our waste problem could worsen and undo years of progress in waste management as WTE needs trash as feedstock to generate power,” Arances told BusinessWorld.
“We must recognize that flooding is not simply a result of individual consumption of plastics, but by a failure of infrastructure governance and lack of people-powered, science-based climate mitigation and adaptation measures,” he added.
He said the Philippines must focus on tapping solar solutions to address energy supply problems rather than staging a green energy auction (GEA) dedicated to WTE.
“We must do away with false alternatives and solutions to the energy crisis, especially when the Philippines’ 91 GW (gigawatts) potential for power sourced from rooftop solar remains largely untapped,” he said.
The DoE is set to conduct a GEA solely for WTE this year. The special round for WTE has set an installation target of 400 megawatts (MW), with winning bidders’ projects targeted to be completed by 2028 to begin supplying electricity by the end of 2029.
The government is touting WTE as an additional pathway for managing suitable residual waste while producing electricity that can contribute to the country’s growing energy requirements.
According to DoE, Metro Manila alone generates an estimated 9,000 metric tons of municipal solid waste per day. This waste stream could support approximately 200 MW of WTE capacity, subject to the availability and suitability of feedstock, as well as other technical requirements.
DoE Secretary Sharon S. Garin said WTE is more of an environmental project rather than an energy project that could lessen the amount of garbage all over the metropolitan area.
“I think waste-to-energy can complement (but) it cannot replace recycling because that would be the best thing for us to do. But right now, we are at the level that we need to really dispose of this garbage so that it doesn’t go back,” Garin said.
She said the upcoming GEA for WTE is gaining traction, with six potential bids from Metro Manila alone.
“We are seeing significant interest from developers, but our objective is not simply to award capacity. We want projects that are technically sound, environmentally compliant, supported by sustainable feedstock, commercially viable, and capable of delivering electricity to the grid,” Garin said.