Trash talk, again and again

THEY’RE NO Greeks bearing gifts, but Pampanga’s LGUs better beware of them.

They are foreign companies or consortia proffering facilities – at little or no cost to the government – to solve the garbage problem of the province.   

“$450-M plasma plant to solve trash problem,” the Capitol press released last Friday about US-based Quantum International Group, Inc. seeking a joint venture with the provincial government. The intent: “to establish a plasma waste treatment facility for the processing and disposal of municipal and industrial solid wastes.”

The $450 million “to be used for the construction of the plant, purchase, importation and set-up of all plasma equipment, and as compensation for the technology required in the plasma processing.”

The PR furthered: “Merlinda Cantero, vice president of Quantum Philippines Property Holdings and Management, Inc., disclosed that the proposed plasma gasification plant needs at least 2,000 metric tons of municipal and industrial wastes daily and is expected to produce power supply not only for the province but for some other parts of Central Luzon.”

And more: “The processing of 2,000 metric tons of wastes could generate 2,000 megawatts of power. The local government units might be able to choose what products they wanted to produce from the plasma gasification plant such gasoline, kerosene and bio-fuels.”

Haven’t we heard all these – and variations of these – before? Here’s some refresher:

On September 14, 2011, Gov. Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda and Lubao Mayor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab signed a memorandum of agreement with James Mackay, chairman of the Pampanga Green Management Inc. and the MacKay Green Energy Inc., for the establishment of a $63-million facility that will convert the province’s garbage into electricity. 
Per the MOA, the facility will not entail any cash-out from the provincial government while the Lubao municipality will provide the site for it at its central materials recovery facility in Barangay Sta. Catalina. The facility is expected to be completed within four months from the signing of the agreement.
Mat Evans of MacKay Green Energy Inc. explained that through a process dubbed as “treating metropolitan solid waste and using the refuse derived fiber to produce renewable energy,” 800 metric tons of garbage a day will go through combustion to generate 22 megawatts of electricity, enough to energize 110,000 households at the rate of one megawatt for every 5,000 households.
“With combustion at 1,200 to 1,800 degrees centigrade, the facility produces no toxic gases,” Evans stressed. “With our system, there will be no longer any need for landfills. With our facility you can be guaranteed to be safe from any leachate, which is very hazardous. Methane issues will no longer be a problem.”
So there was blessing – officiated by the Rev. Fr. Rudy de Guzman, and groundbreaking – participated in by the governor, the vice governor, the mayor and the proponents, at Barangay Sta. Catalina for the MacKay facility. And that was it. Nothing ensued further.

From MacKay’s $63-million facility to Quantum’s $450-million plasma plant, the ante has certainly been upped, aye, maxxed. Still, it’s hard to bite.

Much earlier, the City of San Fernando boasted of the final solution to its garbage woes with the Biosphere facility right at the fringes of the city’s open dumpsite in Barangay Lara.

Ballyhooed as a waste-to-gasification facility, the Spectrum Blue Steel pelletizing plant publicized as ran by one True Green Energy Corp. has yet to make even but a tenth of its promised solution. Stacks of residual wastes to be processed threatening to bury the plant itself.

Gasification. Waste-to-energy. Plasma. Same difference. Differently the same. All involving some incineration or the other.

As well articulated by Greenpeace activist Von Hernandez at the time of the MOA signing of the Capitol and MacKay:  “The Clean Air Act of 1999 explicitly prohibits the incineration of municipal waste, and the proponent (MacKay) is using clever semantic subterfuge (i.e. characterizing their technology as gasification, pyrolisis, or plasma airs) to try to exempt their proposed facility from the ban.
“They will claim that their technology is state of the art and without emissions. I find such spectacular claims hard to believe. While there may be state of the art incinerators, there is no such thing as a pollution-free incinerator.
“The combustion of waste especially chlorine containing materials like plastics creates cancer-causing dioxins and furans, liberates heavy metals into the air, essentially converting a waste problem into a formidable toxics pollution problem which will threaten the communities around the proposed facility.”
Concluded Hernandez: “The Department of the Environment and Natural Resources and the Pampanga provincial government should be cautious and not fall into this trap. Under the Clean Air Act, the public can take them to court for sabotaging and violating the provisions of the law.” 
Hernandez is the 2003 Goldman Environmental awardee, 2007 Time Hero of the Environment, member of the Steering Committee of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, an international anti-incineration coalition promoting zero waste, and the executive director (on leave) of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

$450-M plasma plant to solve trash problem. Pure garbage talk. All the pun intended there.